Before he followed his wife, Babbitt stood at the
westernmost window of their room. This residential
settlement, Floral Heights, was on a rise; and though
the center of the city was three miles away—Zenith
had between three and four hundred thousand inhabitants
now—he could see the top of the Second
National Tower, an Indiana limestone building of thirty-five
stories.
Its shining walls rose against April sky to a simple
cornice like a streak of white fire. Integrity
was in the tower, and decision. It bore its strength
lightly as a tall soldier. As Babbitt stared,
the nervousness was soothed from his face, his slack
chin lifted in reverence. All he articulated
was “That’s one lovely sight!” but
he was inspired by the rhythm of the city; his love
of it renewed. He beheld the tower as a temple-spire
of the religion of business, a faith passionate, exalted,
surpassing common men; and as he clumped down to breakfast
he whistled the ballad “Oh, by gee, by gosh,
by jingo” as though it were a hymn melancholy
and noble.
Relieved of Babbitt’s bumbling and the
soft grunts with which his wife expressed the sympathy
she was too experienced to feel and much too experienced
not to show, their bedroom settled instantly into
impersonality.
It gave on the sleeping-porch. It served both
of them as dressing-room, and on the coldest nights
Babbitt luxuriously gave up the duty of being manly
and retreated to the bed inside, to curl his toes in
the warmth and laugh at the January gale.
The room displayed a modest and pleasant color-scheme,
after one of the best standard designs of the decorator
who “did the interiors” for most of the
speculative-builders’ houses in Zenith.
The walls were gray, the woodwork white, the rug a
serene blue; and very much like mahogany was the furniture—the
bureau with its great clear mirror, Mrs. Babbitt’s
dressing-table with toilet-articles of almost solid
silver, the plain twin beds, between them a small
table holding a standard electric bedside lamp, a
glass for water, and a standard bedside book with
colored illustrations—what particular book
it was cannot be ascertained, since no one had ever
opened it. The mattresses were firm but not hard,
triumphant modern mattresses which had cost a great
deal of money; the hot-water radiator was of exactly
the proper scientific surface for the cubic contents
of the room. The windows were large and easily
opened, with the best catches and cords, and Holland
roller-shades guaranteed not to crack. It was
a masterpiece among bedrooms, right out of Cheerful
Modern Houses for Medium Incomes. Only it had
nothing to do with the Babbitts, nor with any one else.
If people had ever lived and loved here, read thrillers
at midnight and lain in beautiful indolence on a Sunday
morning, there were no signs of it. It had the
air of being a very good room in a very good hotel.
One expected the chambermaid to come in and make it
ready for people who would stay but one night, go
without looking back, and never think of it again.
