A
most reputable looking Englishman in evening dress opened the
door; from her reading and her theater-going she knew that
this was a butler. He bowed her in. The entire lower floor
was given to an entrance hall, done in plain black walnut,
almost lofty of ceiling, and with a grand stairway leading to
the upper part of the house. There was a huge fireplace to
the right; a mirror filled the entire back wall; a broad low
seat ran all round the room. In one corner, an enormous urn
of dark pottery; in another corner, a suit of armor, the
helmet, the breastplate and the gauntlets set with gold of
ancient lackluster.
The butler left her there and ascended the polished but
dead-finished stairway noiselessly. Susan had never before
been in so grand a room. The best private house she had ever
seen was Wright's in Sutherland; and while everybody else in
Sutherland thought it magnificent, she had felt that there was
something wrong, what she had not known. The grandiose New
York hotels and restaurants were more showy and more
pretentious far than this interior of Brent's. But her
unerring instinct of those born with good taste knew at first
view of them that they were simply costly; there were
beautiful things in them, fine carvings and paintings and
tapestries, but personality was lacking. And without
personality there can be no unity; without unity there can be
no harmony--and without harmony, no beauty.
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