Hart smiled at her impetuous unpractically.
"That would hardly do, would it, to go back on a client like that? It's none of my business, really. Only one hates to feel that his ideas are wasted on such stuff as this is made of. The city should look after it. And it's no worse than most of these flat buildings. Look at that one across the street. It's the same cheap thing. I was in there the other day.... No, it's the condition of things in this city,—the worst place for good building in the country. Every one says so. But God help the poor devils who come to live here, if a fire once gets started in this plaster-and-lath shell!"
He turned to the entrance and kicked open the door in disgust. Helen's face was pale and set, as if she could not dismiss the matter thus lightly.
"I never thought of fire!" she murmured. "Francis, if anything like that should happen! To think that you had drawn the plans!"
"Oh! it may last out its time," he replied reassuringly. "And it doesn't affect the appearance of the building at present. It's real smart, as Mrs. Rainbow would say. Don't you think so, Nell?"
She was standing with her back to the pleasant façade of the Graveland, and was staring into the Park across the street. Turning around at his words she cast a swift, scrutinizing glance over the building.
"It isn't right! I see fraud looking out of every window. It's just a skeleton covered with cloth."
The architect laughed at her solemnity. He was disgusted with it himself; it offended his workman's conscience. But he was too modern, too practical, to allow merely ideal considerations to upset him. And, after all, in his art, as in most arts, the effect of the work was two-thirds the game. With her it was altogether different. Through all outward aspect, or cover, of things pierced their inner being, from which one could not escape by illusion.
As they were leaving the place the contractor drove up to the building for his daily inspection. He came over to the architect, a most affable smile on his bearded face.
"Mrs. Hart, I presume," he said, raising his hat. "Looking over your husband's work? It's fine, fine, I tell you! Between ourselves, it beats Wright all out."