Frank blushed slightly; and Lucy cried from beneath her black cloth, "Don't get up, Mr. Jermyn; Gertrude will excuse you, I am sure."
Gertrude, laughing, retreated to the waiting-room; where, throwing herself into a chair, and leaning both her elbows on a rickety scarlet table, she stared vaguely at the little picture of youth and grace which the parted curtains revealed to her.
How could they be so cheerful, so heedless? cried her heart, with a sudden impatience. Was this life, this ceaseless messing about in a pokey glass out-house, this eating and drinking and sleeping in the shabby London rooms?
Was any human creature to be blamed who rebelled against it? Did not flesh and blood cry out against such sordidness, with all the revel of the spring-time going on in the world beyond?
It is base and ignoble perhaps to scorn the common round, the trivial task, but is it not also ignoble and base to become so immersed in them as to desire nothing beyond?
"What mean thoughts I am thinking," cried Gertrude to herself, shocked at her own mood; then, gazing mechanically in front of her, saw Lucy disappear into the dark-room, and Frank come forward with outstretched hand.
"At last I can say 'good-morning,' Miss Lorimer."
Gertrude gave him her hand with a smile; Jermyn's was a presence that somehow always cleared the moral atmosphere.
"You will never guess," said Frank, "what I have brought you."
As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a number of The Woodcut, damp from the press, and opening it at a particular page, spread it on the table before her.