Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/87

 had one's hearthstone to doze before if one ever got such a peculiar inclination. Louella only remained at the house of Madame Clair until she had learned as much as she could, then she departed. It was quite simple to be in partnership with the girls and to share all profits equally.

She looked around for more than a month before she found the brownstone house where she settled. She visited numerous cities but not till she found the particular large four-story detached house that intrigued her was she satisfied.

The top-floor was to be her own private home. A place of peace and quiet. Utterly tranquil. No sordid business would be transacted there and certainly no contracts fulfilled. It was to be the home of a middle-aged woman, a rather tired woman, whose beauty was fading and whose velvet skin was beginning to be spoiled by rolls of fat. Every comfort money could buy was procured for that apartment. The most elaborate furniture, carpets as thick and soft as park grass, luxurious grandfather-chairs, plenty of lamps, especially reading lamps, arranged at convenient angles.

One of the rooms was a library. It contained thousands of books on every conceivable subject, some of which Louella did not even understand. There were also a great many mystical and spiritual books. Of course there were many costly volumes of erotica.

But it was tales of the soil that Madame Leota liked best. Her thoughts were at last winging back to the days of her youth. Her childhood home had been a romantic place. There had been quietude and peace. But she had never appreciated it. She had always desired to get away from the farm. Now she had regrets. She pined for her lost youth. She longed for the old farm once more.

What a fool she had been never to have gone back! Now she never could go back because her parents had found everlasting rest. Templeton had told her about it in one of his letters. They died within a few days of each other. Their life had been a ueautiful rustic idyll. They had dwelt for years in a house by the side of the road. They were friends to everyone. Samuel Walter Foss might have got the idea for his immortal poem from them.