Later, as the invalid had ordained, Hilda, having eaten, sat by the fire in the large, quiet bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Orgreave. The latter was enjoying a period of ease, and lay, with head raised very high on pillows, in her own half of the broad bed. The quilt extended over her without a crease in its expanse; the sheet was turned down with precision, making a level white border to the quilt; and Mrs. Orgreave did not stir; not one of her grey locks stirred; she spoke occasionally in a low voice. On the night-table stood a Godfrey's Chloride of Ammonia Inhaler, with its glass cylinder and triple arrangement of tubes. There was only this, and the dark lips and pale cheeks of the patient, to remind the beholder that not long since the bed had been a scene of agony. Mr. Orgreave, in bright carpet slippers, and elegant wristbands blossoming out of the sleeves of his black house-jacket, stood bending above a huge board that was laid horizontally on trestles to the left of the fireplace. This board was covered by a wide length of bluish transparent paper which at intervals he pulled towards him, making billows of paper at his feet and gradually lessening a roll of it that lay on the floor beyond the table. A specially arranged gas-bracket with a green shade which threw a powerful light on the paper showed that Osmond Orgreave's habit was to work in that spot of an evening.
"Astonishing I have to do this myself, isn't it?" he observed, stooping to roll up the accumulated length of paper about his feet.
"What is it?" Hilda asked.
"It's a full-sized detail drawing. Simple!... But do you suppose I could trust either of my ingenious sons to get the curves of the mouldings right?"
"You'll never be able to trust them unless you begin to trust them," said Mrs. Orgreave sagely from the bed.
"Ha!" ejaculated Osmond Orgreave satirically. This remark was one of his most effective counters to argument.
"The fact is he thoroughly enjoys it, doesn't he, Mrs. Orgreave?" said Hilda.
"You're quite right, my dear," said Mrs. Orgreave.
"Ah!" from Mr. Orgreave.
He sketched with a pencil and rubbed out, vigorously. Then his eye caught Hilda's, and they both smiled, very content. "They'd look nice if I took to drink instead of to work, for a change!" he murmured, pausing to caress his handsome hair.