gray house caught them in that stage when the organ-grinder was slowly undergoing his inevitable metamorphosis. She was twenty-three; he was twenty-six.
The gray house was, at first, of sheerly pastoral intent. They lived impatiently in Anthony’s apartment for the first fortnight after the return from California, in a stifled atmosphere of open trunks, too many callers, and the eternal laundry-bags. They discussed with their friends the stupendous problem of their future. Dick and Maury would sit with them agreeing solemnly, almost thoughtfully, as Anthony ran through his list of what they “ought” to do, and where they “ought” to live.
“I’d like to take Gloria abroad,” he complained, “except for this damn war—and next to that I’d sort of like to have a place in the country, somewhere near New York, of course, where I could write—or whatever I decide to do.”
Gloria laughed.
“Isn’t he cute?” she required of Maury. “‘Whatever he decides to do!’ But what am I going to do if he works? Maury, will you take me around if Anthony works?”
“Anyway, I’m not going to work yet,” said Anthony quickly.
It was vaguely understood between them that on some misty day he would enter a sort of glorified diplomatic service and be envied by princes and prime ministers for his beautiful wife.
“Well,” said Gloria helplessly, “I’m sure I don’t know. We talk and talk and never get anywhere, and we ask all our friends and they just answer the way we want ’em to. I wish somebody’d take care of us.”
“Why don’t you go out to—out to Greenwich or something?” suggested Richard Caramel.
“I’d like that,” said Gloria, brightening. “Do you think we could get a house there?”
Dick shrugged his shoulders and Maury laughed.
“You two amuse me,” he said. “Of all the unpractical people! As soon as a place is mentioned you expect us to pull great piles of photographs out of our pockets showing the different styles of architecture available in bungalows.”
“That’s just what I don’t want,” wailed Gloria, “a hot stuffy bungalow, with a lot of babies next door and their father cutting the grass in his shirt sleeves—”
“For Heaven’s sake, Gloria,” interrupted Maury, “nobody wants to lock you up in a bungalow. Who in God’s name brought bungalows into the conversation? But you’ll never get a place anywhere unless you go out and hunt for it.”
“Go where? You say ‘go out and hunt for it,’ but where?”
With dignity Maury waved his hand paw-like about the room.
“Out anywhere. Out in the country. There’re lots of places.”
“Thanks.”
“Look here!” Richard Caramel brought his yellow eye rakishly into play. “The trouble with you two is that you’re all disorganized. Do you know anything about New York State? Shut up, Anthony, I’m talking to Gloria.”
“Well,” she admitted finally, “I’ve been to two or three house parties in Portchester and around in Connecticut—but, of course, that isn’t in New York State, is it? And neither is Morristown,” she finished with drowsy irrelevance.
There was a shout of laughter.
“Oh, Lord!” cried Dick, “neither is Morristown!’ No, and neither is Santa Barbara, Gloria. Now listen. To begin with, unless you have a fortune there’s no use considering any place like Newport or Southhampton or Tuxedo. They’re out of the question.”
They all agreed to this solemnly.
“And personally I hate New Jersey. Then, of course, there’s upper New York, above Tuxedo.”
“Too cold,” said Gloria briefly. “I was there once in an automobile.”
“Well, it seems to me there’re a lot of towns like Rye between New York and Greenwich where you could buy a little gray house of some—”
Gloria leaped at the phrase triumphantly. For the first time since their return East she knew what she wanted.
“Oh, yes!” she cried. “Oh, yes! that’s it: a little gray house with sort of white around and a whole lot of swamp maples just as brown and gold as an October picture in a gallery. Where can we find one?”
“Unfortunately, I’ve mislaid my list of little gray houses with swamp maples around them—but I’ll try to find it. Meanwhile you take a piece of paper and write down the names of seven possible towns. And every day this week you take a trip to one of those towns.”
“Oh, gosh!” protested Gloria, collapsing mentally, “why won’t you do it for us? I hate trains.”
“Well, hire a car, and—”
Gloria yawned.
“I’m tired of discussing it. Seems to me all we do is talk about where to live.”
“My exquisite wife wearies of thought,” remarked Anthony ironically. “She must have a tomato sandwich to stimulate her jaded nerves. Let’s go out to tea.”
As the unfortunate upshot of this conversation, they took Dick’s advice literally, and two days later went out to Rye, where they wandered around with an irritated real estate agent, like bewildered babes in the wood. They were shown houses at a hundred a month which closely adjoined other houses at a hundred a month; they were shown isolated houses to which they invariably took violent dislikes, though they submitted weakly to the agent’s desire that they “look at that stove—some stove!” and to a great shaking of doorposts and tapping of walls, intended evidently to show that the house would not immediately collapse, no matter how convincingly it gave that impression. They gazed through windows into interiors furnished either “commercially” with slab-like chairs and unyielding settees, or “home-like” with the melancholy bric-à-brac of other summers—crossed tennis rackets, fit-form couches, and depressing Gibson girls. With a feeling of guilt they looked at a few really nice houses, aloof, dignified, and cool—at three hundred a month. They went away from Rye thanking the real estate agent very much indeed.
On the crowded train back to New York the seat behind was occupied by a super-respirating Latin whose last few meals had obviously been composed entirely of garlic. They reached the apartment gratefully, almost hysterically, and Gloria rushed for a hot bath in the reproachless bathroom. So far as the question of a future abode was concerned both of them were incapacitated for a week.
The matter eventually worked itself out with unhoped-for romance. Anthony ran into the living room one afternoon fairly radiating “the idea.”
“I’ve got it,” he was exclaiming as though he had just caught a mouse. “We’ll get a car.”
“Gee whiz! Haven’t we got troubles enough taking care of ourselves?”
“Give me a second to explain, can’t you? just let’s leave our stuff with Dick and just pile a couple of suitcases in our car, the one we’re going to buy—we’ll have to have one in the country anyway—and just start out in the direction of New Haven. You see, as we get out of commuting distance from New York, the rents’ll get cheaper, and as soon as we find a house we want we’ll just settle down.”
By his frequent and soothing interpolation of the word “just” he aroused her lethargic enthusiasm. Strutting violently about the room, he simulated a dynamic and irresistible efficiency. “We’ll buy a car to-morrow.”
Life, limping after imagination’s ten-league boots, saw them out of town a week later in a cheap but sparkling new roadster, saw them through the chaotic unintelligible Bronx, then over a wide murky district which alternated cheerless blue-green wastes with suburbs of tremendous and sordid activity. They left New York at eleven and it was well past a hot and beatific