Happy House

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Happy House
Mrs. Walbridge stood at the top of the steps, a pink satin slipper in her hand, looking absently out into the late afternoon. The July sunlight spread in thick layers across the narrow, flagged path to the gate, and the shadows under the may tree on the left were motionless, as if cut out of lead. The path was strewn with what looked like machine-made snowflakes, and a long piece of white satin ribbon had caught on the syringa bush on the right of the green gate, and hung like a streak of whiter light across the leaves. Someone inside the house was playing a fox-trot, and sounds of tired laughter were in the air, but the well-known author, Mrs. Walbridge, did not hear them. She was leaning against the side of the door, recklessly crushing her new grey frock, and her eyes were fixed on the gate in the unseeing stare of utter fatigue. Presently the music stopped and the sudden silence seemed to rouse her, for, with a deep sigh and a little shake of the head that was evidently characteristic, she turned and went slowly into the house.
A few minutes later a brisk-looking young man in a new straw hat came down the street and paused at the gate, peering up at the fanlight to verify his whereabouts.Number eighty-eight did not seem to satisfy him, but suddenly his eyes fell on the gate. On its shabby green were painted the words, very faded, almost undecipherable, "Happy House," and with a contented nod the young man opened the gate and went quickly up the steps. No one answered his ring, so he rang again. Again the silence was unbroken, but from somewhere far off he heard the sound of laughter and talking, and, peering forward into the little hall, he took a small notebook from his pocket and wrote a few words in it, whistling softly between his teeth. He was a freckled-faced young man with a tip-tilted nose, not in the least like the petals of a flower, and with a look of cheery cheekiness. After a moment he went into the passage and thrust his head into the open drawing-room door. The room was filled with flowers, and though the windows were wide open, it smelt close, as if it had already been full of people. The walls were covered with pink and white moiré paper, whose shiny surface was broken by various pictures. Watts's "Hope" in a gilt frame dominated the mantelpiece; a copy of "The Fighting Téméraire" faced it, and there were a good many photographs elaborately framed, grouped, like little families, in clusters. Between the windows hung an old, faded photogravure of "The Soul's Awakening," and "Alone at Last" revealed its artless passion over a walnut chiffonier laden with small pieces of china. The young man in the straw hat, which was now pushed far back on his sweat-darkened fair hair, stood in the middle of the room and looked round, scratching his head with his pencil. His bright eyes missed nothing, and although he was plainly a young man full of buoyant matter-of-factness, there was scorn, not unkindly, but decided, in his merry but almost porcine eyes as he made mental notes of his surroundings.