At breakfast-time guests would hurry down, and
burst open cupboard doors with a cheery "Good-morning." When that
woman was out, nobody in that house ever knew where anything was; and
when she came home she herself only knew where it ought to have been.
Yet once, when one of those twenty-nine cupboards had to be cleared
out temporarily for repairs, she never smiled, her husband told me,
for more than three weeks--not till the workmen were out of the
house, and that cupboard in working order again. She said it was so
confusing, having nowhere to put her things.
The average woman does not want a house, in the ordinary sense of the
word. What she wants is something made by a genii. You have found,
as you think, the ideal house. You show her the Adams fireplace in
the drawing-room. You tap the wainscoting of the hall with your
umbrella: "Oak," you impress upon her, "all oak." You draw her
attention to the view: you tell her the local legend. By fixing her
head against the window-pane she can see the tree on which the man
was hanged. You dwell upon the sundial; you mention for a second
time the Adams fireplace.
"It's all very nice," she answers, "but where are the children going
to sleep?"
It is so disheartening.
If it isn't the children, it's the water. She wants water--wants to
know where it comes from. You show her where it comes from.
"What, out of that nasty place!" she exclaims.
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