Part 4 (1/2)
”For Heaven's sake, Stuyve----”
”Yes, for Heaven's sake and in Heaven's name don't get any wrong ideas into your vicious head.”
”What?”
”I tell you,” said Briggs, ”that I was never closer to falling in love than I am to-day. And I've been here just two weeks.”
”Oh, Lord----”
”Amen,” muttered Briggs. ”Here, give me your carpet-bag, you brute.
We're on the edge of Paradise.”
III
[Ill.u.s.tration]
”Before we discuss my financial difficulties,” said the poet, lifting his plump white hand and waving it in unctuous waves about the veranda, ”let me show you our home, Mr. Wayne. May I?”
”Certainly,” said Wayne politely, following Guilford into the house.
They entered a hall; there was absolutely nothing in the hall except a small table on which reposed a single daisy in a gla.s.s of water.
”Simplicity,” breathed Guilford--”a single blossom against a background of nothing at all. You follow me, Mr. Wayne?”
”Not--exactly----”
The poet smiled a large, tender smile, and, with inverted thumb, executed a gesture as though making several spots in the air.
”The concentration of composition,” he explained; ”the elimination of complexity; the isolation of the concrete in the center of the abstract; something in the midst of nothing. It is a very precious thought, Mr.
Wayne.”
”Certainly,” muttered Wayne; and they moved on.
”This,” said the poet, ”is what I call my den.”
Wayne, not knowing what to say, sidled around the walls. It was almost bare of furniture; what there was appeared to be of the slab variety.
”I call my house the house beautiful,” murmured Guilford with his large, sweet smile. ”Beauty is simplicity; beauty is unconsciousness; beauty is the child of elimination. A single fly in an empty room is beautiful to me, Mr. Wayne.”
”They carry germs,” muttered Wayne, but the poet did not hear him and led the way to another enormous room, bare of everything save for eight thick and very beautiful Kazak rugs on the polished floor.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Simplicity,” breathed Guilford--”a single blossom against a background of nothing at all.”]
”My children's bedroom,” he whispered solemnly.
”You don't mean to say they sleep on those Oriental rugs!” stammered Wayne.
”They do,” murmured the poet. The tender sweetness of his ample smile was overpowering--like too much bay rum after shaving. ”Sparta, Mr.