“I wouldn’t mind doing business after it was well established,” he muttered, carefully arranging one lock of hair to fall carelessly over his temple, in contrast with its pure whiteness. “It is the dingy beginning I hate. I hate anything dingy. People mistake when they fancy me extravagant, and that I like show and splendor. I do not like them. But I do like and must have cleanliness, and good taste, and freshness, and light, and space.”
What he said was in some measure true; and “pity ‘tis, ‘tis true” that simple good taste can, in the city at least, be gratified only at an extravagant price, and that poverty necessarily entails dinginess.
He glanced about the room, and frowned with disgust. The ceiling was low, the paper on the walls a cheap and therefore an ugly pattern, the chairs and carpet well kept, but a little faded. Plain cotton blinds, those most hideous and bleak of draperies, veiled the two windows, and an antiquated old mahogany secretary, the shape of which could have been tolerable only when the prestige of new fashion surrounded it, held a few books in faded bindings.
The young man shrugged his shoulders, and went toward the door. As he opened it, the draught blew open another door in the entry, and disclosed the shaded front chamber, with its cool blue and snowy white, its one streak of sunshine through a chink in the shutter, and its wax candle burning before the marble Madonna.
“That is what I like,” he thought, and passed hastily by. Annette would be waiting for him.
The sensible thoughts inspired by F. Chevreuse lasted only till the quiet, shady street was passed. With the first step into South Avenue, and the first glance down its superb length, other feelings came, and cottages and narrow ways dwindled and were again contemptible. The high walls, and cupola, and spreading wings of his lady’s home became visible, and he could see the tall pillars of Miss Ferrier’s new conservatory, which was almost as large as the whole of the house he lived in. The fascination of wealth caught him once more, and the thought of labor became intolerable.
Miss Ferrier was indeed on the lookout, and, brightening with joyful welcome, came out to the porch to meet her visitor as he entered the gate. He had so many times forgotten her invitations that she had not felt sure of him, and the pleasant surprise of his coming made her look almost pretty. Her blue-gray eyes shone, her lips trembled with a smile, and a light seemed to strike up through her excessively frizzled flaxen hair. If it had only been Honora! But, as it was, he met her kindly, feeling a momentary pity for her. “Poor girl! she is so fond of me!” he thought complacently, feeling it to be his due, even while he pitied her. “But I wish she wouldn’t put so much on. She looks like a comet.”
For Miss Ferrier’s pink organdie flounces streamed out behind her in a manner that might indeed have suggested that celestial phenomenon. She had, however, robbed Peter to pay Paul; for, whereas one end of her robe exceeded, the other as notably lacked.
“Mamma has not yet come back from her drive,” she remarked, leading the way into the drawing-room. “It is astonishing what keeps her so long.”
“Oh! it’s one of her distribution days, isn’t it?” Lawrence asked, with a little glimmer of amusement that brought the blood into his lady’s face.