He stood staring about him, his eyes wide open enough now. From one detail to another his quick, keen-eyed glance roved, lingering an instant on certain points where artful touches of colour relieved the more subdued general tone of the furnishings. The room suggested, above all things, quiet and repose, yet there was a soft and mellow cheer about it which made it anything but sombre. Its browns and blues and ivories wrought out an exquisite harmony. The furniture was simple but solid, the roomy high-backed davenport luxurious with its many pillows. The walls showed a few good pictures--how good, it might not be that Red Pepper fully understood. But he did understand, with every sense, that it was such a room as a man might look upon and be proud to call his home. But he was silent so long that Ellen looked up at him, to make sure that there was no displeasure in his face. Instead she found there deeper feeling than she expected. He returned her look, and she discovered that he was not finding it easy to tell her what he thought of it all. She led him to the couch and drew him down beside her. He put his arm about her, and with her head upon his shoulder the pair sat for some time in a silence which Ellen would not end. But at length, looking into the fire, his head resting against hers, Burns broke the stillness. "I suppose I'm an impressionable chap," he said, "but I wasn't prepared for just this. I knew it would be a beautiful room, if you saw to it, but I had no possible notion how beautiful it would be. There is just one thing about it that breaks me up a bit. Perhaps you won't understand, but I can't help wishing I could have done the work for you instead of you for me. It isn't the work, either, it's the--love." "And you couldn't have spared enough of that to furnish a room with?" He laughed, drawing her even closer then he had held her before. "I'll trust you to corner me, every time," he said. "Yes, I could have spared love enough--no doubt of that. But it seems as if it were the man who should put the house in order for the woman he brings home." "You have excellent taste," said she demurely, "but I never should credit you with the discriminations and fastidiousnesses of a decorator. And why should you want to take away from me the happiness of making my own nest? Don't you know it's the home-maker who finds most joy in the home? Yet--it's the home-comer I want to have find the joy. Do you think you can rest in this room, Red?" He drew a deep, contented breath. "Every minute I am in it. And from the time I first begin to think about it, coming toward it. Home! It's Paradise! This great, deep, all-embracing blue thing we're sitting in--is it made of down and velvet?" "Precisely that. Velvet to cover it, down in the pillows. I hope you'll have many a splendid nap here." "You'll spoil me," he declared, "if you let me sleep here. I'm used to catching forty winks in my old leather chair in the office, while I wait for a summons."