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There was not only steam-heat in the public rooms of the ground floor, but there was furnace heat in all the corridors, and there were fireplaces in certain chambers, which also looked out on the sea, to Corsica and Elba and other isles of it, and would be full of sun as soon as the cold rain closed a fortnight's activity.
That rain was very disappointing; for, in the intervals between tunnels, we had fancied, from the few brief glimpses we caught of the landscape, that the April so backward elsewhere in Italy was forwarder in the blossomed trees along the eastern Riviera; and we learned at our hotel that the steam-heat had just been taken off because the day had been so hot and dry, though the evening was now so cold and wet.
It wasn't only the steam and their clothes being hidden; it had started with the scare at the spring in the morning, and when they had told him what they thought about that, they went back still further and bellowed about the mismanagement of the place ever since he had taken charge, and the food, and the steam-heat, and the new rules oh, they hated him all right, and they told him so, purple-faced with rage and heat, dancing around him and shaking one fist in his face, as I say, while they held their sheets fast with the other.
The furniture, though simple, is sufficient; to satisfy our national nervousness, the halls are so well-stocked with rocking-chairs that European visitors look about them with alarm, and try to find some seats that promise a more stable equilibrium; the sleeping-rooms are scrupulously clean; soft blankets, snow-white sheets, and comfortable beds assure a good night's rest; and the staff of colored waiters in the dining-room, steam-heat, a bell-boy service, and electric lights made us forget our distance from great cities and the haunts of men.
"That's another!" said he, poking the fire savagely, and I knew what he meant. One cannot put steam-heat in houses where Queen Elizabeth slept. The steady beat of a night-mail, whirling down the valley, recalled me to business. "What about the Great Buchonian?" I said. "Come into my study. That's all as yet."
"A 'camp' sounds rather primitive for one in your condition," I suggested. "That's because you haven't been there. In reality it's a big house, with twenty-five rooms, and steam-heat and electric lights, and half a dozen men to take care of it when it's empty as it has been for several years." I smiled for I could read her thought.
"Well," she would say, "if we have got to sacrifice Art to steam-heat and speaking-tubes...." The young man was both amazed and exasperated by her spirit and her pertinacity; he could only be kept in trim and in temper by Bingham's frequent assurances that she was a very clever girl and a very well-meaning one, after all.
Life's one great big thing that don't take shape by reason of our acts. What's the civilisation we love to pat ourselves on the back for? I'll tell you. It's just a thing we've invented, like wireless telegraphy, or soap, or steam-heat; and it hands us a cloak to cover up the evil that man and woman'll never quit doing.
They give us the steam-engine, the skyscraper, the steam-heat, the flying machine, the elevated railroad, the apartment house, the newspaper, the breakfast food, the weapons of the army, the weapons of the navy, and think that they have beautified our existence. Moreover some one rises at this point to make a plea for the scientific imagination.
I could see that she hadn't been brought up on steam-heat and cold storage, but had grown into a woman by the sea-shore. She had brown eyes, and fine brown hair, and a good figure. "This is Captain Torkeldsen," said Jack. "This is Miss Brewster, captain; and she is glad to see you." "Well, I am," said Miss Mamie, "for Jack has often talked to us about you, captain."
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