and, as if the matter was closed, sat down in it. He adjusted his glasses and unfolded his evening paper.
Ada slipped down from her perch. "Oh, it's no use," she burst out (the paper was shielding her from her father's piercing eyes). "It's just no use ever trying to amount to anything in this house!"
"Expensively bound books won't perform the operation, young lady," sneered Marcus, his eyes running across the headlines of the paper. "Just so much more veneer. That's all."
Ada flung her magazine on the table, and left the room with a little rush. She went up-stairs fighting her tumultuous emotions as she mounted the two long flights to the room that she and Beatrice shared. She went in, closing the door behind her. It was an ugly room. A low gas flame in a round white globe dimly lit up its furnishings—ugly, ornate oak bed, ugly combination of pier-glass and chiffonier, ugly carpet, ugly paper. Upon the shelf, however, there rested one gem of artistic triumph—Beatrice's chic little twenty-dollar hat. Ada knew, too, that within the closet there hung a whole row of beautiful creations in silk, and satin, and broadcloth. The entire house was like that—common and ordinary in its furnishings, offensive even—and
