She sent a little “nigger,” who conducted him with wordless dignity to the apartment allotted him, and who some five minutes later returned again with the “last Englishman’s things.” That personage must have been of very slight proportions and medium height, whereas Roden stood six foot one in his stockings, and was of excellent figure. He struggled for some time with the meagre garments, and then decided that he could not put in an appearance until his own garments should be dry. At this moment some one knocked at the door with the announcement—“Dinner rade-y.”
“I can’t come to dinner,” said Roden at the key-hole. “The clothes won’t fit me. Say I am very sorry.”
The departing footsteps echoed down the narrow corridor that led to the room which had been given him, and Roden, who had taken the silk coverlet from the bed and rolled himself in it, stretched out before the fire of pine cones in the big fireplace. The room was large and square, and had hangings of faded green silk embroidered with tarnished gold. A ponderous mahogany wardrobe, looking like nothing so much as a grim wooden mausoleum, occupied nearly all of one wall. Facing this on the opposite side of the room was a low chest of drawers, also of mahogany, with brass lion-head handles. A square mirror in a wrought-brass frame hung over it. The bedstead was low and wide, with foot-board and head-board of a like height. Voluminous curtains of faded green fell from a mahogany frame fastened to the ceiling, and were tucked back behind brass knobs on either side of the bed. There was a huge pale-green paper screen crowded into one corner of the room, and behind this Roden discovered a bath-tub and a washhand-stand. One picture hung over the mantle-shelf, a reproduction of the Madonna of the Chair, done evidently with a very hard and very pointed lead-pencil, and faintly tinted with pink chalk as to lips and cheeks.
Roden lay in the soft embrace of his one Indian-like garment and stared up at this work of art. He became fascinated in wondering how many days it must have taken its indefatigable perpetrator to make the million of little scratches that composed it. He wondered if it were the production of generations past or present. Could Virginia herself have been guilty of it? He thought not. At all events he hoped not. Her voice seemed to put her beyond the pale of such possibilities. He recalled it to his memory’s ear now, with a distinct sensation of pleasure. There had been in it a certain rich sonorousness. It was grave, serious, soft as the rush of the rain through the short grass without. A beautiful voice attracts men always, even as the timbre of a fine instrument invariably attracts a musician. It is, so to speak, the overture to the whole character. No; the pink-cheeked Virgin, with the slate-colored infant tilted against her wooden and unresponsive bosom, could never have been the work of the maiden in the Rosalind costume. Never, never! Why, now that he thought of it, should the cheeks of the pictured Madonna so blush? unless, perhaps, at the culpable drawing of her sacred proportions. Why should she have been drawn at all? There was absolutely no reason that he could discover. The pine cones crackled and blazed up with a savory smell. The fragrant warmth stole pleasantly over the young fellow’s relaxed limbs. The pink-and-gray Madonna faded slowly and surely away in a golden haze. There was a pleasant humming as of a summer field within his ears. Why did he seem to be pulling up a scarlet window-blind, which obstinately refused to remain in position, in order to let three large black sheep gambol at their pleasure about that imposing mahogany catafalque? And why did the loss of a brass key at least three feet long, and which seemed to belong to his hat-box, occasion him such acute mortification when called upon by a very old woman in blue kid low-shoes to explain its whereabouts? And why did—and why didn’t—and what on earth made them all? Roden had not slept so soundly since leaving British soil.
He was awakened by a vigorous rapping at the door. He sat up and rolled himself more tightly in the big green silk quilt.
“Who is it?” he said.
“’Tis yo’ clo’es,” replied a solemn voice. “An’ please, sur, ter dress ez quick ez you kin, ’case supper soon be rade-y.”
Roden admitted his once more dry outfit through a small aperture in the door, after having inquired as to the time, and finding that he had slept two hours.
“Miss Faginia she say ez how she ben think you’d rayther eat yo’ supper jiss so, ’thout sp’ilin’ it with er sorter dinner,” chanted the monotonous voice without.