The Kitchen Intimate

Milt had become used to the Gilson drawing-room. He was no longer
uncomfortable in the presence of its sleek fatness, though at first (not
knowing that there were such resources as interior decorators), he had
been convinced that, to have created the room, the Gilsons must have
known everything in the world. Now he glanced familiarly at its white
paneling, its sconces like silver candlesticks, the inevitable davenport
inevitably backed by an amethyst-shaded piano lamp and a table crowded
with silver boxes and picture-frames. He liked the winsomeness of light
upon velvet and polished wood.

It was not the drawing-room but the kitchen that dismayed him.

In Schoenstrom he had known that there must somewhere be beautiful
"parlors," but he had trusted in his experience of kitchens. Kitchens,
according to his philosophy, were small smelly rooms of bare floors, and
provided with one oilcloth-covered table, one stove (the front draft
always broken and propped up with the lid-lifter), one cupboard with
panes of tin pierced in rosettes, and one stack of dirty dishes.

But the Gilson kitchen had the efficiency of a laboratory and the
superciliousness of a hair-dresser's booth. With awe Milt beheld walls
of white tiles, a cork floor, a gas-range large as a hotel-stove, a
ceiling-high refrigerator of enamel and nickel, zinc-topped tables, and
a case of utensils like a surgeon's knives. It frightened him; it made
more hopelessly unapproachable than ever the Alexandrian luxury of the
great Gilsons.... The Vanderbilts' kitchen must be like this. And maybe
King George's.

He was viewing the kitchen upon the occasion of an intimate Sunday
evening supper to which he had been yearningly invited by Mrs. Gilson.
The maids were all out. The Gilsons and Claire, Milt and Jeff Saxton,
shoutingly prepared their own supper. While Mrs. Gilson scrambled eggs
and made coffee, the others set the table, and brought cold ham and a
bowl of salad from the ice-box.