CHAPTER IV


BETWEEN THE DESK AND THE WINDOW

Hartley Parrish's library was a splendid room, square in shape, lofty
and well proportioned. It was lined with books arranged in shelves of
dark brown oak running round the four walls, but sunk level with them
and reaching up to a broad band of perfectly plain white plasterwork.

It was a cheerful, comfortable, eminently modern room, half library,
half office. The oak was solid, but uncompromisingly new. The great
leather armchairs were designed on modern lines--for comfort rather
than for appearance. There were no pictures; but vases of chrysanthemums
stood here and there about the room. A dictaphone in a case was in a
corner, but beside it was a little table on which were set out some rare
bits of old Chelsea. There was also a gramophone, but it was enclosed in
a superb case of genuine old black-and-gold lacquer. The very books in
their shelves carried on this contrast of business with recreation. For
while one set of shelves contained row upon row of technical works,
company reports, and all manner of business reference books bound in
leather, on another were to be found the vellum-bound volumes of the
Kelmscott Press.

A sober note of grey or mole colour was the colour scheme of the room.
The heavy pile carpet which stretched right up to the walls was of this