It was, therefore, according to Daisy's dial, about six-thirty in the morning instead of that hour p.m., when the jitney, doubling adroitly between two great gate-posts of gray masonry, spun along a paved driveway and pulled up before a house so big and ornamental and ostentatious that it filled Daisy with a kind of momentary awe just to look at it.
This structure would have filled an architect with awe, too, though not the same kind. Looking at the house upon which Sir Thomas Harrison had set the imprimatur of his taste and his predilections, the architect would, if he were a psychologist, have said that Sir Thomas had once been plain—very plain—Tom. He would have said that Sir Thomas loved the chief seats in synagogues. He would have said that Sir Thomas loved to push and shove and crowd, and believed in the survival of the fittest—the fittest, that is to say, according to Sir Tom's standard. He would have said that Sir Thomas gave liberally to charities, for three reasons—for display, for business reasons, and to parade his dollars before the needy. He would have said that Sir Thomas loved advertisement, and paid high rates to have his "write-up" in "special supplements". He would have said that Sir Thomas, in regard to the policies or sentiments of the day, might always be found on the band-wagon—not because he always understood these policies and sentiments, but because the crowd clapped for 'em.
The architect would have said, further, that if he had had a sister and if she had been a pretty and irresolute girl and had chosen—we will say for the sake of present illustration—to go, as the sylph of the Imperial Hotel phrased it, "into service", he would have preferred to have her work almost anywhere else in town than at the house of Sir Thomas Harrison. This in spite of the deference and ostentatious politeness Sir Thomas—at state receptions and so forth, where he was well-watched—used toward the awkward and reticent woman he had married before he made his money—or rather, before the natural growth of the country made his money for him.
The architect might also have premised, from the heavily-built and solid cement bridge that was Sir Thomas Harrison's plan for bringing a rather pretty ravine up to the level of his driveway, as well as from a huge concrete garage and other indications of a superfluity of stone and mortar, that Sir Tom was a contractor and that the "Sir" end of his name—if it had not come by the political route, that is to say—had come through connection with the building of some railroad or government building or other public work by which, it had happened, the country had benefited while itself benefiting Sir Thomas Harrison.
Upon house and grounds, in short, was set the seal of dollars. Every dollar that would show. "Have more dollars than the next man, and let him know you have 'em," was Sir Thomas' social creed.
The chauffeur half-turned his head, and opened the door of the tonneau. Eye-corner and mouth-corner twinkled. Daisy jumped actively out, "telescope" grip in hand.
"Thank you", she said, and turned to go. In the country, one does not pay for a "lift" on one's way.
"One dollar, lady," came the voice of her driver. Daisy faced about. The features, as a whole, of the chauffeur held only polite formality; but eye-corner and mouth-corner still twinkled and twitched.