Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/105

Rh her house as she likes it, for a man can always get out of it, you see. But, confound it, it does give me the blues. To go prowling round in this kind of a dim, religious light, breaking your shins against chairs and marble statues and things—and eating your food in a sort of Gotterdämmmerung—that word expresses my feelings—why, you might as well be at a table-d'hôte, for all you know what you're eating. And then, there ain't a comfortable chair in the place—except on my floor. I say, you two come up there after dinner, and I'll show you what's my idea of a room. I had to fight for that floor, too, I can tell you! Alice wanted to hang my bed-room with sea-green brocade and marquetry furniture. You can easily slip out, you know, for the drawing-room'll be pitch dark, except a circle of light where the fellow recites, and perhaps we could get Basil and Mary, too."

"I like that! Do you think you could steal away the audience and Alice not notice? Besides, I want to hear this wonderful person." "Oh, no, you don't! Really, you don't. D'you know why all the lights are turned out when he recites? Because he's so terribly indecent that people are ashamed to look each other in the face. He says it's because genius won't flow if he has to look at his audience, but I know better. I go away when he begins—I can't stand him, 'pon my word. I'm a modest man. I say, hang