Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/56

 His father had restored, with each repainting, the bright, agreeable hues and tints which denied the nearness of the huge, surrounding city, denied even the close-neighboring mansions on both sides. Eastward, to be sure, the fringe of the city was scant; behind the house was only another house faced to the Drive which was saved from the waves by a narrow strip of snowy parkway and a buttress of stone and concrete upon which the breakers beat and beat.

Jay let himself in with his latchkey and halted before the flaming hearth in the hall. Silence in the house, except for the snapping of the maple wood; silence and oppressiveness.

His father had not maintained, when redecorating the interior, the original papers and hangings. Perhaps he could not; perhaps he had not tried. Slowly sombreness had overtaken the hall, the drawing-room, the dining-room and spread through the house.

Defying it, Jay had a habit of whistling when coming in; but he did not whistle now. He went up to his own room, which he could remember when it had been the nursery with a glorious band about it picturing Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty and the Cow jumping over the Moon. That had been a bit of his mother who, he had been told, had had the room so painted when Margaret was the baby.

Since Jay was the younger child, the nursery had remained his room and his sister had been moved to the chamber which still was Margaret's, though she had been married for two years and lived in New York. Her door was closed; it was always closed. The doors of the rooms