"You will like his ideas and he will like yours,"
said Brent.
She had acquiesced in his insistent friendship for Palmer and
her, but she had not lowered by an inch the barrier of her
reserve toward him. His speech and actions at all times,
whether Palmer was there or not; suggested that he respected
the barrier, regarded it as even higher and thicker than it
was. Nevertheless she felt that he really regarded the
barrier as non-existent. She said:
"But I've never told you my ideas."
"I can guess what they are. Your surroundings will simply be
an extension of your dress."
She would not have let him see--she would not have admitted to
herself--how profoundly the subtle compliment pleased her.
Because a man's or a woman's intimate personal taste is good
it by no means follows that he or she will build or decorate
or furnish a house well. In matters of taste, the greater
does not necessarily include the less, nor does the less imply
the greater. Perhaps Susan would have shown she did not
deserve Brent's compliment, would have failed ignominiously in
that first essay of hers, had she not found a Gourdain,
sympathetic, able to put into the concrete the rather vague
ideas she had evolved in her dreaming. An architect is like
a milliner or a dressmaker. He supplies the model, product of
his own individual taste. The person who employs him must
remold that form into an expression of his own
personality--for people who deliberately live in surroundings
that are not part of themselves are on the same low level with
those who utter only borrowed ideas.
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