1
The Stone Image
by Seabury Quinn
The Thrill Book, May 1, 1919
Why is it, I wonder, that there must always be a rift in the lute, a fly in the ointment, a gnat in the ice-cream soda?
Take Betty and me, for example. If I might be allowed to borrow a term from our Spiritualist friends, I would say that never were husband and wife more thoroughly en rapport than Betty and I. When I call down from the bathroom and ask her where in blazes her what-d'ye-call-it is she knows perfectly well that I'm inquiring of the whereabouts of her Cr?me Shalimah, with which I desire to anoint my newly shaven face. When Betty calls up from the living room and asks me to throw my thing-a-bob down to her I know, as well as if she had told me, that she wishes my pocketknife for the purpose of retipping the pencil from which she had just chewed the point. This far all is well with Betty and me.
But the high gods, who are ever greenly jealous of human happiness, took an underhand method of revenge when they afflicted Betty and me with diverse tastes in things artistic. I have a partiality for etchings, pastels, and aquarelles--clean Western art--and everything savoring of the East, from teakwood to tea, is detestable to me. Betty dotes upon Oriental embroideries, bronzes, and carvings--and thereby hangs this tale.
One bright afternoon last autumn, when the florists were beginning to display chrysanthemums in their windows, and the September haze hung over the hills in the country, Betty took me for a walk down the Avenue. Her cooing amiability ought to have warned me that she was hatching up some dire plot against my peace and happiness, but what married man can fathom the depths of his