Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/136

124 pillows as big as a steamer-trunk, with lace-bordered and lace-crested pillow-cases over them. I noticed, too, that the sheets were lace bordered, with the same crest worked on them, and a blanket of creamy wool was edged with three inches of pale rose satin.

But, oh, the softness of that bed when I hopped into it; the soothing pliancy of it as I rolled over between those crested sheets! It seemed to take me in its arms and hold me there, the way that a man who really cares for a woman tries to hold her. It seemed to billow up all about me, like lazy waves that were floating me off to warm-scented islands where all the fat little Cupids could rock in the palm-tops and the two-legged goats could do lazy minuets to the drone of their own flutes.

I wormed and squirmed from one side of that bed to the other, just to get used to the softness of it all. Then I tried a stretch or two. And as I did so it came home to me how I'd always liked luxury, how I'd always nursed that absurd and hopeless ache for grandeur.

"Call me at noon to-morrow, Celeste!" I quietly announced to Aliss Ledwidge.

But there wasn't the ghost of a smile on that nurse's face as she went about adjusting the covers