Sven digital books

The war had brought him enormous increase in his collection.
Owners of French chateaus, driven to poverty, were sending to
America treasures of all sorts of furniture, tapestries, carpets,
old fountains, porcelains, even carved woodwork and ancient mantels,
and Rodney, from the mixed motives of business and pride, decided
to exhibit them.
The old brick floor of the stable he replaced with handmade tiles.
The box-stalls were small display-rooms, hung with tapestries and
lighted with candles in old French sconces. The great carriage-room
became a refectory, with Jacobean and old monastery chairs, and the
vast loft overhead, reached by a narrow staircase that clung to the
wall, was railed on its exposed side, waxed as to floor, hung with
lanterns, and became a ballroom.
Natalie worked with him, spending much time and a prodigious amount
of energy. There was springing up between them one of those curious
and dangerous intimacies, of idleness on the woman's part, of
admiration on the man's, which sometimes develop into a wholly
spurious passion.


Pages:
196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220