The furniture was modern upholstery,
with gay chintz slip-covers. Frilled muslin curtains were crossed over
and draped high under outer ones of chintz. And everywhere there were
flowers--roses, orange blossoms, and camellias; in tall jars and short,
on every available piece of furniture. Scarcely less in evidence were
photographs, propped against walls, ornaments, and flower jars; long,
narrow, highly glazed European photographs with white backgrounds,
uniformed officers, sentimentally posed engaged couples, young mothers
in full evening dress reading to barefooted babies out of gingerly held
picture books. There were photographs of all varieties; big ones and
little ones, framed and unframed--the king and the queen with
crown-surmounted settings and boldly written first names, and "_A la
cara Eleanor_" inscribed above that of her majesty. In the other
photographs the signatures grew in complication and length as their
aristocratic importance diminished. Books and magazines littered the
tables; French, Italian, and English in indiscriminate association. A
workbasket of plain sewing lay open among the pillows on the sofa. An
American magazine, with a paper-knife inserted between its leaves, was
tossed beside a tooled morocco edition of Tacitus. A crucifix hung
beneath the Correggio; a plaster model of the Discobolus stood between
the windows.
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