"Yes. But I think we will have a glass of wine and—Have you eaten anything?"
She colors a little. "No," says Denise. "She doesn't eat enough to keep a cricket alive."
"Then we must have some dinner. Denise will get it. Would you like to come up-stairs with me?"
He has brought home a few papers to put in her father's desk. On the threshold he pauses. The room is in perfect order. The snowy bed, the spotless toilet-table, the clean towels on the rack, with their curious monogram in Denise's needle-work, the table, with an orderly litter of papers, arranged by a woman's hand, and a white saucer filled with purple heliotrope. The arm-chair is a trifle pushed aside, as if some one has just risen, and another chair, as if for a guest, stands there. He understands that she has been busy here. She gives a long sigh.
"My poor darling!"
She is weeping very softly in his arms.
"It is all so sad," she says, "and yet I know he is in heaven with mamma. He loved her very much. Denise told me so. He would not wish to come back even if he could, and it would be selfish to want him. He had to suffer so much, poor papa! But I would like to keep this room just so, and come now and then, if I might."
"You shall. I must talk to Denise." He wonders now how Lindmeyer would like to be here for a month. There are so many things to go over. "Yes," he continues, "this room shall be sacred. No one shall come here but Denise and you."
"Thank you."
They go through to the study. He remembers the picture he saw here one day. Then they continue their walk past her plain little nun's room, with Denise's opening out of it. The house being built on a side-hill makes this just above the kitchen. Down-stairs there are four more rooms.