II
"I CALL this Star-ridge," Mr. Lowell said, "because here only I come, and the stars …"
Velvet California nights, stars so bright that they seemed like lanterns hung in a velvet sky, fit canopy for the panorama spread before Ken and his patron.
"This is my monastery," Mr. Lowell added. "Yours, too. There's nothing you can't do here. Swim, race, ride, play at games, music … and then there's the organ."
They ascended stairs. Star-ridge clung to a side of Flintridge against the battlemented mountains. Above, Big Tijunga and Little Tijunga, Pickens Canyon and the Sierra Madres, with Mount Wilson towering against the moonlit background. Below, a carpet of lights, the deep cleft of the Arroyo and Devil's Gap. Everything was as fantastic as the journey through the desert to this castle of Star-ridge. They left the garden with its overpoweringly sweet scent of orange blossoms and entered.
"It isn't real, Mr. Lowell," Ken said.
The organ rose to the top of the house. The old man sat before the manuals and began to play.
"My fingers are stiff," he apologized. Then, as the reeds roared: "This is by Johann Sebastian Bach, greatest of all composers." The pedal notes thundered, the trumpets pealed, the earth shook. Little by little the consummate majesty of the music died. Angels' voices swooningly sang a dulcet melody. Ken held his breath in awe.
18
