Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/96

 "Now, I think, Rutherford."

Carrying accumulated mail and cards from the hall into the drawing room, with its tapestries and paintings, its old Italian chairs, and through it to the small tile-floored morning room beyond.

"No use going up yet, until Nora gets the dressing cases unpacked. Mercy, I feel untidy!"

Tea, scalding hot, and her father's table laid out with whisky and soda.

"The Marshall Merediths are having a garden party."

"When, mother?"

"On the nineteenth. Their dahlias ought to be very nice now."

James passing little cakes with cream inside, her favorite cakes, and Rutherford gravely watching. James really was funny in his livery, with the buttons down the long tails. Did he sit on them, ever? And how they must scratch the chairs! She must look at the chairs in the servants' dining room sometime.

"I don't see why people want to give dinner parties at this time of year."

"Gertrude Hazlett is having a dance at the country club tomorrow, mother."

Anything, everything. Only don't think.

Mr. Dowling had settled down in his deep chair, the tray with decanter and siphon at his elbow. He was glad to be at home again. He never entered either of his houses without a deep sense of satisfaction. After all, although his father had left him a great deal, he had not been content to live without effort. He had added to what he inherited. And this house was his, his and Katherine's. It represented their common tastes; together they had traveled and collected.

He could look around and remember where and how each piece was secured. The old glass decanter beside him, for instance

Katherine was going upstairs. She gathered up her gloves, her bag and the litter of cards, notes and invitations from her lap and rose.