She brought his hands together in one last triumphant smack, and leaning forward imprinted a light kiss upon his forehead. He tried to draw her again into his arms, but she broke from him.
“Oh, no, no, no,” she said, and ran lightly up the stairs. She turned at the corner of the landing to blow a kiss to him. “Good-night, darling,” and she was gone.
It was not repeated. Doubt, remorse, hesitation were alike forgotten in the excitement of preparation. He had arranged to take over the lease of a small house on the edge of the Marston estate, and the furnishing of it was a new and delightful game. The present tenants did not relinquish possession till the end of February, and during the intervening weeks Muriel and Roland would prowl round the house like animals waiting for their prey. They were finely contemptuous of the existing arrangements. Fancy using the big room as a drawing-room; it faced southeast, and though it would be warm enough during the morning, it would be freezily cold in the afternoon. Of course they would make that the dining room; it would be glorious for breakfast. And that big room above it should be their bedroom; they would awake with the sunlight streaming through the window.
“You’ll see the apple tree while you brush your hair,” he told her. And they both agreed that they would cut down the large walnut tree in the garden. It was pretty, but it shut out the view of Hogstead. “It’ll be much better to be able to look out from the drawing-room window and see the funny old people going up and down the village street.” And Roland reminded her how they had looked down on them that day when they had leaned against the gate: “Do you remember?” And she had laughed and told him that he was a stupid old sentimentalist, but she had kissed him all the same. And then the great day had come when the tenants began to move; they stood all the afternoon watching the workmen stagger into the garden, bowed with the weight of heavy furniture.
“I can’t think how all that stuff ever got in there,” Muriel said, and began to wonder whether they themselves would ever have enough. “We’ve nothing like as much as that.”
And Roland had to assure her that they could always buy more, and that anyway the house had been over-furnished.
“You couldn’t move for chairs and chesterfields and bureaus.”
It was two days before the last van rolled away and Muriel and Roland were able to walk up the garden path “into our own house.” But it was a bitter disappointment. The rooms looked mean and small and shabby now that they were unfurnished. The bare boards of the floors and staircases were dirty and covered with the straw of packing cases, the plaster of the wall showing white where the book shelves had been unfixed. And the paper that had been shielded by pictures from the sunshine struck a vivid contrast to its faded environment. Muriel was on the verge of tears.
“Oh, Roland, what’s happened to our pretty house?” she cried. And it took all his skill to persuade her that rooms always did look small till they were furnished, and that carpets and pictures covered many things.
“But our pictures won’t fit exactly in those places,” Muriel wailed, “and all our small pictures will have haloes.”