THE RED CANDLE
great house by a great river, and it was set in a great room with squares of black-and-white marble for a floor, and with a fountain with goldfish swimming in its basin, and there were red-and-blue parrots on perches, and orange-trees in porcelain pots, and the tree itself wasn't a pine-tree or a fir or a cedar; it was a queer round, clipped thing of yew, and it had red and blue and orange balls on it, and in the place of a wax angel on top there was a golden Buddha, and there were no candles—but the light shone out and out of it, like the light shines from the moon."
"Was it a Christmas tree?" Pussy asked, as he paused.
"Yes, but the people who trimmed it and the ones who came to see it didn't believe in the Wise Men, or the Babe in the Manger, or the shepherds who watched their flocks by night—they just worshiped beauty and art—and other gods—but it was a corking tree"
"You use such funny words," Pussy crowed ecstatically. "Who ever heard of a corking tree?"
He smiled at her indulgently. He was warmer now, and as he leaned back in his chair and unbuttoned his coat he seemed to melt suddenly into something that was quite gentlemanly in pose and outline. "Well, it really was a corking tree, Pussy."
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