Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/211

Rh her own) made the dull gray shell at the top of Chestnut Street appear a soulless thing. There was a feeling of luxury about the Park home, the minute one stepped foot in it. This was not confined to its furnishings (there was a great deal too much furniture, Katherine's sensitive architect brother, Gerard, complained), but the same superfluity, obvious in the over-supply of armchairs, drop-lights, cigar-stands, long row of magazines and periodicals, laid out upon the library table, and piled here and there on numerous stands and bookcase tops around the edge of the room, was manifest also in the miscellaneous array of people, who appeared to be making their permanent or temporary headquarters under the expansive Park roof.

Reba couldn't straighten them all out, or explain the presence of half of them there. They were not all Parks, by any means. Upon her arrival she had been introduced to a confusing group of individuals, which she and Katherine had found on the broad veranda when they had driven up in the automobile. They were consuming bits of lemon from an otherwise empty pitcher which not long since must have been well-filled with some sort of refreshment, from the appearance of the dozen or thereabouts empty glasses carelessly distributed on chair-seats, piazza-rails, and window-sills.

Reba could not make out why certain of the people on that veranda, such as Tommy Blake, for instance, ("a neighbor of ours," it had been tossed to her during the hurried introduction) remained for the evening repast in the dining-room, while others, such as Katherine's own mother, were absent. It was easily enough explained, of course. Tommy's people were away and Mrs. Park was presiding at a meeting of some sort