id-Victorian red plush of his club, too, he is
comfortable. "Waiter, another whiskey and soda!"

Mildred is expected home after her first year in boarding school. Her
mother wishes to environ her, so to speak. Mildred is delicate in her
tastes, so delicate that she scarcely ever expresses herself. Her mind
and body are pure; her heart beats faster when she learns of distress.
Voluptuousness, Venus, and Vice are all merely words to her. Mother
does not explain this to the decorator. "My daughter is returning from
school," she says, "I want her room done." "What style of room?"
"After all you are supposed to know that. I am engaging you to arrange
it for me." "Your daughter, I take it, is a modern girl?" "You may
assume as much." In despair for a hint the decorator steals a look at
a photograph of the miss, full-lipped, melting dark eyes, and
blue-black hair. Sensing an houri he hangs the walls with a deep shade
of Persian orange, over which flit tropical birds of emerald and
azure; strange pomegranates bleed their seeds at regular intervals.
The couch is an adaptation, in colour, of the celebrated _Sumurun_
bed. The dressing table and the _chaise-longue_ are of Chinese
lacquer. A heavy bronze incense burner pours forth fumes of Bichara's
_Scheherazade_. From the window frames, stifling the light, depend
flame-coloured brocaded curtains embroidered in Egyptian enamelled
beads. It is a triumph, this chamber, of _style Ballet Russe_. Diana
is banished ... and shrinking Mildred, returning from school, finds
her demure soul at variance with her surroundings.

A man's house should be the expression of the man himself. All the
books on the subject and even the household decorators themselves will
tell you that. But, if the decoration of a house is to express its
owner, it is necessary that he himself inspire it, which implies, of
course, the possession of ideas, even though they be bad. And men in
these United States are not expected to display mental anguish or
pleasure when confronted by colour combinations. In America one is
constantly hearing young ladies say, "He's a man and so, of course,
knows nothing about colour," or "Of course a man never looks at
clothes." It does not seem to be necessary to argue this point. One
has only to remember that Veronese was a man; so was Velasquez. Even
Paul Poiret and Leon Bakst belong to the sex of Adam. Nevertheless
most Americans still consider it a little _effemine_, a trifle
_decla