Then:
"Telegraph form if you have one, please," he requested briefly. "I
wish to wire for my car. Put Johnson in the room next mine.
Johnson's my secretary." He looked at Alicia, reflectively. "Amiable
ass, Johnson," he volunteered. Then he went over to the tiled
fireplace--we were in the library--and bent worshipfully before it.
"The finest bit of tile-work on this continent," he said, in a
hushed voice. "Absolutely perfect. And it belongs to a woman named
Smith!"
"We know just how you feel about it," Alicia told him
sympathetically, while The Author turned red to his ears. "I have
often felt like that myself, when something I particularly wanted
was bought by somebody I was sure couldn't properly appreciate it. I
dare say I was mistaken," admitted Alicia, "just as mistaken as you
are now in thinking that Sophy and I aren't worthy of those tiles.
We are--all the more so because we never before had anything like
them."
The spoiled darling of success looked at us intently; and a most
curious change came over his clever, bad-tempered face. His eyes are
as bright as ice, and have somewhat the same cold light in them. Now
a thaw set in and melted them, and a mottled red spread over his
sallow cheeks.
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