The office, with
its clacking typewriters, its insistent, nerve-racking
telephone bells, its systematic rush, its smoke-dimmed
city room, was but an ugly part of the dream.
Back to that inferno of haste and scramble and
clatter? Never! Never! I resolved, drowsily. And
dropped off to sleep again.
And the sheets. Oh, those sheets of Norah's! Why,
they were white, instead of gray! And they actually
smelled of flowers. For that matter, there were rosebuds
on the silken coverlet. It took me a week to get chummy
with that rosebud-and-down quilt. I had to explain
carefully to Norah that after a half-dozen years of
sleeping under doubtful boarding-house blankets one does
not so soon get rid of a shuddering disgust for coverings
which are haunted by the ghosts of a hundred unknown
sleepers. Those years had taught me to draw up the sheet
with scrupulous care, to turn it down, and smooth it
over, so that no contaminating and woolly blanket should
touch my skin. The habit stuck even after Norah had
tucked me in between her fragrant sheets. Automatically
my hands groped about, arranging the old protecting
barrier.
"What's the matter, Fuss-fuss?" inquired Norah,
looking on.
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