Architects -- Fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Love stories; Middle West -- Fiction
“Please don’t make too much of him. Everyone pays me the compliment of
thinking him Galahad, but I think of him as the naughty Launcelot. I
read a book once on old French glass and I just had to have a window.
And the organ made this room the logical place for it. Papa calls this
my chapel and refuses to sit in it at all. He says it’s too much like
church!”
“Ah! But that’s a tribute in itself! Your father realizes that this is
a place for worship--without reference to the knight.”
She laid her forefinger against her cheek, tilted her head slightly,
mocking him with lips and eyes.
“Let me think! That was a pretty speech, but of course you’re referring
to that bronze Buddha over there. Come to think of it, papa does rather
fancy him.”
When she smilingly met his gaze he laughed and made a gesture of
despair.
“That was a nice bit of side-stepping! I’m properly rebuked. I see my
own worshiping must be done with caution. But the room is beautiful.
I’m glad to know there’s such a place in town.”
“I did have a good time planning and arranging it. But there’s nothing
remarkable about it after all. It’s merely what you might call a
refuge from reality--if that means anything.”
“It means a lot--too much for me to grasp all at once.”
“You’re making fun of me! All I meant was that I wanted a place to
escape into where I can play at being something I really am not. We all
need to do that. After all, it’s just a room.”
“Of course that’s just what it isn’t! It’s superb. I’ve already decided
to spend a lot of time here.”
“You may, if you won’t pick up little chance phrases I let fall and
frighten me with them. I have a friend--an awful highbrow--and he bores
me to death exclaiming over things I say and can’t explain and then
explaining them to me. But--why aren’t you at the Claytons’ party?”
“I wasn’t asked,” he said. “I don’t know them.”
“I know them, but I wasn’t asked,” she replied smilingly.
“Well, anyhow, it’s nicer here, I think.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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