“Jinks! wouldn’t it be fine to take her there! The lark in London wouldn’t be ace high to it.”
The Hutchinsons were not New Yorkers, but they had been part of the atmosphere of Mrs. Bowse’s. Mr. Hutchinson would of course be rather a forward and pushing man to be obliged to meet, but Little Ann! She did so like Little Ann! And the dear boy did so want, in his heart of hearts, to talk about her at times. She did not know whether, in the circumstances, she ought to encourage him; but he was so dear, and looked so much dearer when he even said “Little Ann,” that she could not help occasionally leading him gently toward the subject.
When he opened the newspapers and found the advertisements of the flats, she saw the engaging, half-awkward humorousness come into his eyes.
“Here’s one that would do all right,” he said—“four rooms and a bath, eleventh floor, thirty-five dollars a month.”
He spread the newspaper on the table and rested on his elbow, gazing at it for a few minutes wholly absorbed. Then he looked up at her and smiled.
“There’s a plan of the rooms,” he said. “Would you like to look at it? Shall I bring your chair up to the table while we go over it together?”
He brought the chair, and side by side they went over it thoroughly. To Miss Alicia it had all the interest of a new kind of puzzle. He explained it in every detail. One of his secrets had been that on several days when Galton’s manner had made him hopeful he had visited certain flat buildings and gone into their intricacies. He could therefore describe with color their resources—the janitor; the elevator; the dumb-waiters to carry up domestic supplies and carry down ashes and refuse; the refrigerator; the unlimited supply of hot and cold water, the heating plan; the astonishing little kitchen, with stationary wash-tubs; the telephone, if you could afford it,—all the conveniences which to Miss Alicia, accustomed to the habits of Rowcroft Vicarage, where you lugged cans of water up-stairs and down if you took a bath or even washed your face, seemed luxuries appertaining only to the rich and great.
“How convenient! How wonderful! Dear me! Dear me!” she said again and again, quite flushed with excitement. “It is like a fairy-story. And it’s not big at all, is it?”
“You could get most of it into this,” he answered, exulting. “You could get all of it into that big white-and-gold parlor.”
“The white saloon?”