Both of them were immense. Under the ceilings
of the former even the great canopied bed seemed of
only average size. On the floor an exotic rug
of crimson velvet was soft as fleece on his bare feet.
His bathroom, in contrast to the rather portentous
character of his bedroom, was gay, bright, extremely
habitable and even faintly facetious. Framed around
the walls were photographs of four celebrated thespian
beauties of the day: Julia Sanderson as “The
Sunshine Girl,” Ina Claire as “The Quaker
Girl,” Billie Burke as “The Mind-the-Paint
Girl,” and Hazel Dawn as “The Pink Lady.”
Between Billie Burke and Hazel Dawn hung a print representing
a great stretch of snow presided over by a cold and
formidable sun—this, claimed Anthony, symbolized
the cold shower.
The bathtub, equipped with an ingenious bookholder,
was low and large. Beside it a wall wardrobe
bulged with sufficient linen for three men and with
a generation of neckties. There was no skimpy
glorified towel of a carpet—instead, a
rich rug, like the one in his bedroom a miracle of
softness, that seemed almost to massage the wet foot
emerging from the tub....
All in all a room to conjure with—it was
easy to see that Anthony dressed there, arranged his
immaculate hair there, in fact did everything but
sleep and eat there. It was his pride, this bathroom.
He felt that if he had a love he would have hung her
picture just facing the tub so that, lost in the soothing
steamings of the hot water, he might lie and look
up at her and muse warmly and sensuously on her beauty.
NOR DOES HE SPIN
The apartment was kept clean by an English servant
with the singularly, almost theatrically, appropriate
name of Bounds, whose technic was marred only by the
fact that he wore a soft collar. Had he been entirely
Anthony’s Bounds this defect would have been
summarily remedied, but he was also the Bounds of
two other gentlemen in the neighborhood. From
eight until eleven in the morning he was entirely Anthony’s.
He arrived with the mail and cooked breakfast.
At nine-thirty he pulled the edge of Anthony’s
blanket and spoke a few terse words—Anthony
never remembered clearly what they were and rather
suspected they were deprecative; then he served breakfast
on a card-table in the front room, made the bed and,
after asking with some hostility if there was anything
else, withdrew.
In the mornings, at least once a week, Anthony went
to see his broker. His income was slightly under
seven thousand a year, the interest on money inherited
from his mother. His grandfather, who had never
allowed his own son to graduate from a very liberal
allowance, judged that this sum was sufficient for
young Anthony’s needs. Every Christmas he
sent him a five-hundred-dollar bond, which Anthony
usually sold, if possible, as he was always a little,
not very, hard up.
