He possessed an inlaid chest of drawers across from
the graceful low-boy used by Fanny as a dressing-table; there was a bed
stand with brass-tipped feet, a Duncan Fyfe, she declared; split
hickory chairs painted a dark claret color; small hooked rugs on the
waxed floor; and, against the mirror on his chest of drawers, a big
photograph of Fanny and the two children in the window-seat of the
living room.
A dinner shirt lay in readiness on the bed, the red morocco boxes that
held his moonstone cuff links and studs were evident, but he ignored
those provisions for his ease. There was a strange, a different and
unaccountable, uneasiness, a marked discomfort, at his heart. The
burden of it was that he had a very great deal of which, it might well
be, he wasn't worthy. In Fanny, he told himself, as against everything
else discoverable, he had the utmost priceless security life could
offer. Outside the brightness and warmth and charm of their house the
November night was slashed by a black homeless wind.
Her sureness, undeniably, was founded on the inalterable strength of
her convictions; against that sustaining power, it occurred to him, the
correctness of her beliefs might be relatively unimportant. Could any
more be required of a faith than its ability, like a life preserver on
water, to hold an individual safe from sinking? Strangely enough, the
one or two greatly powerful men with whom he had come in contact were
like Fanny, prejudiced, closed against all opinions contrary to their
own, impatient of doubt and self-questioning.
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