"But suppose you did not want things--cluttery, everlasting things, glaring, upholstered, painted, carved, what not--lugged from the four corners of the earth, not harmonizing with your own aims or interests? Suppose you wanted to create an individual and representative home and take care of it and the guardian angel who presided therein--then what would you do?" "Oh--you mean you want another style of house? Then let's buy a country tract--and I promise to let you build and furnish just as you wish. That's a bully idea, dear, to have an abrupt contrast to this house--old-English manor type would be wonderful!" The dinner gong brought a merciful release. Beatrice danced through the archway throwing him a kiss as the rest of her decision. It was at this identical moment that Steve concluded it was too late for his wife ever to develop anything more than a double chin or so. CHAPTER XVI During Beatrice's house party, at which twenty or so equally Gorgeous Girls and their husbands were quartered in the Villa Rosa, while a string orchestra danced them further along the road toward nervous prostration each night, a fire ignited in the offices of the O'Valley Leather Company. Steve's office and Mary's adjoining room were damaged by water rather than by the slight blaze itself and during an enforced recess from work both Mary and Steve found that a fire in an office building may cause a loss of time from routine yet be a great personal boon. The day following the accident, Steve having been summoned at midnight to view the flames, Mary came to the office to try to rescue the files and sweep aside the debris. "Nothing is really hurt, but they always mess things up," Steve said, coming to the doorway to hold up a precious record book. "See this? I wonder why they always leave such a lot of stuff to clear away. Now the whole extent of damage is the destroying of that rickety side stairway that is never used and could have been done away with long ago. Some boys, playing craps and smoking, left the makings of the fire and before it touched these rooms there was water poured into the whole plant. As a consequence, we have a three-day vacation and instead of having the side stairs torn down I'm in line for a chunk of insurance." "Even the tea isn't spilled from my caddy," Mary answered; "Look." "Wonder what they used this side stairway for? It was rickety when I bought the place." He looked at the blackened remains of steps. "I don't know," Mary answered, absent-mindedly. She could have added that whenever she looked at those stairs or their closed door she saw but one thing--Steve on his wedding day as he came stealing up to ask about the long-distance telephone call, aglow with happiness and dreams. For her own reasons, therefore, Mary did not regret the destruction of the side stairs.