It was I who had the task of sorting
and arranging this motley collection, and I can hardly tell you, Padre,
how I loved doing it!
The room isn't large, so the ten or twelve pictures on the walls are not
lost in a desert of bare spaces. These pictures, the toys, the books,
tennis-rackets, golf-clubs and two lovely old Persian prayer-rugs are
all of Jim's treasures brought to France. He must have been a boy of
individual, independent nature, for it seems he disliked the idea of
killing things for pleasure, and was never a hunter or even a fisherman.
Consequently, there are no monster fish under glass, or rare birds or
butterflies, or stuffed animals. He must have loved wild creatures
though, for five of the beloved pictures are masterly oil-paintings by
well-known artists, of lions and tigers and stags, _chez eux_, happy and
at home, not being hunted, or standing agonized at bay. Oh, getting this
den in order has taught me more about the real Jim than a girl can learn
about a man in ordinary acquaintance in a year! But then I had a
wonderful foundation to begin building upon: that day in the
rose-arbour--the red-rose day of my life.
Well, when the car was expected back from the station, bringing Jim home
to his mother, I went by her command to the den. Even that was better
than having to meet him in the presence of those two dear souls who
trusted and loved me only second to him. And yet everything in the den
which had meant something in Jim's life, seemed to cry out at me, as I
shut the door and stood alone with them--and my pounding heart--to wait.
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