"
"You wouldn't be wondering if you knew the man," said O'Dowd. "He is a
scholar, a dreamer, a sufferer. He doesn't believe in doctors. He says
they're all rascals. They'd keep him alive just for the sake of what
they could get out of him. So he's up here to die in peace, when his
time comes, and he hopes it will come soon. He doesn't want it
prolonged by a grasping, greedy doctor man. It's his kidneys, you
know. He's not a very old man at that. Not more than sixty-five."
"He certainly has a fanciful streak in him, building a place like
that," said Barnes, looking not at the house but into the thicket
above. There was no sign of the blue and white and the spun gold that
still defied exclusion from his mind's eye. He had not recovered from
the thrall into which the vision of loveliness plunged him. He was
still a trifle dazed and distraught.
"Right you are," agreed O'Dowd; "the queerest streak in the world.
It's his notion of simplicity. I wish you could see the inside of the
place. You'd wonder to what exalted heights his ideas of magnificence
would carry him if he calls this simplicity. He loves it all, he dotes
on it. It's the only joy he knows, this bewildering creation of his.
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