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Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth), 1879-1971

"This Freedom"

I'll spend half
my time our first weeks pottering about with a hammer and a pair of
pliers. This place just here on the landing. Looks like a dungeon.
We'll knock out a window there and fit it up with hot and cold
water as a cloak room. Now here's your room, your--"
"My study," she had interpolated, a little apprehensive lest for
her private room he should use another word.
"Yes, your study, rather. Each of us with our own study! A lark,
eh? And Rosalie, in mine there'll be a special chair for you and
in yours a special chair for me. We'll stroll in on each other's
work--"
She loved him for that. "Like two men in chambers," she said.
His reply was, "We'll rip out this fireplace and put you in one in
oak; the walls something between gold and brown, eh? Now come into
the drawing-room. This'll be the room. Let's start with the hearth
and imagine it's winter. This is where we'll have tea the days when
I get back in time--"
"And when I get back in time."
"Of course, I'd forgotten that. Why, then whichever of us is back
first will be all ready with the tea and waiting to welcome the
other. Can't you see the room? Warm, shadowed, glowing here and
there, here and there gleaming, and the tea table shining? Won't
it be a place to rush back to? I say, Rosalie, it's going to be
rather wonderful, isn't it?"
Dear Harry! Yes, men that married for a home.
So she had known that from the start; and, the significant thing
(as later perceived) she never had mentioned it to Harry.


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