“Mr. Wynne, miss, did you say? Very sorry, but Mr. Wynne is in court,” said the clerk, briskly.
“When will he be back?” she inquired, advancing and standing in the front of another door, evidently Mr. Wynne’s own sanctum.
“Afraid I cannot say, miss; he is to speak in the case of Fuller v. Potts—breach of contract. Any business, any message——”
But the words died upon his lips—this uncommonly cool young party had actually walked into Mr. Wynne’s own sitting-room.
“It’s all right,” she remarked carelessly, divining his horror. “Mr. Wynne knows me.”
And she went and sat down in his armchair, in front of a table piled with documents, all more or less neatly tied up and docketed.
There were numbers of letters under little weights. There was a law book, a couple of open notes, and all the apparatus of a busy legal man. She shrugged her shoulders and looked round the room; it was dingy and shabby (furniture taken at a valuation from the last tenant); the carpet between the door and the fireplace was worn threadbare, as if it were a pathway—which it was.
Another pathway ran from the window to the wall, which the inmate had probably paced as he made up his speeches. There was her especial abomination, horse-hair furniture, a queer spindle-legged sideboard, some casual old prints on the wall; certainly there was nothing in the room to divert Laurence’s attention. Outside there was no prospect beyond a similar set of chambers, a very ugly block of buildings, and one forlorn tree waving its branches restlessly to and fro.
She got up and glanced into an adjoining apartment. The clerks were not now watching her—Mr. Wynne did not tolerate idleness. This was his bedroom, a still barer scene. No carpet whatever, no curtains, a small iron bedstead, a big bath, a battalion of boots. Laurence, she remembered, was always extremely particular about his boots, and hated to wear them when patched; these were whole, well cut, and in good case. There was a sixpenny glass on the wall, a painted chest of drawers and washstand, also one chair. Spartan simplicity, indeed! What a horrible contrast to her own luxurious home! She closed the door with a little shudder, and as she did so a quantity of large, important-looking cards and envelopes, stuck about the dusty chimney-piece mirror and the pipe-rack, caught her eye, and she immediately proceeded to examine them with dainty fingers.
“Blest if she ain’t overhauling his invitations!” exclaimed one of the clerks, who, by tilting his chair back until it was at a most hazardous angle, caught a glimpse of what he and his coadjutor began to think was “Mr. Wynne’s young woman.”