“Mabel,” he said that night at dinner, “It’s good and sweet of you to have painted all those pegs white. It must have taken you a long time.”
“Never touched your rotten old pegs,” said Mabel. “Pass the salt.”
His ears twitched.
3
Later that evening he sat alone in his bedroom. He also used this room as a study. He had been driven to this somewhat frowsty practice by the fact that he could not possibly sit in any room that had ever been called a den.
A tap at the door. Ellen Morse entered to turn the bed down. A bright idea flashed across Luke’s mind. His ears positively jumped.
He believed in liberty, equality and familiarity, especially familiarity. So did Ellen Morse.
“Dot,” he said, “was it you who painted my fall-pegs white?”
“Well, old bean,” said Dot, “it was like this. I’ll tell you.” She seated herself on the bed. “You see, this house has only got four reception-rooms and eight bedrooms, and all the washing’s done at home, and all the dressmaking, and there’s a good deal of entertaining, mostly when you’re not there, and everything has to be right up to the mark. Well, as there were the whole two of us to do it, your old woman thought time would be hanging heavy on our hands, so now we do the garden as well. The other day Mr. Doom Dagshaw was lunching here, and they were going to play tennis afterwards. Your bit of skirt has some proper games with that Dagshaw. I watch them out of the pantry window in my leisure moments. Well, anyhow, I’d to mark out the tennis court, and I mixed up a bit more of the stuff than was needed, and I thought I might as well use it up on your pegs. You see, I get a half-Sunday off every three months, and it was only a fourteen-mile walk there and back. And I’m sure I didn’t know what else to do with my holiday.”
“Dot,” said Luke, “you seem to be able to enter into things. You get the hang of my ideas. Some do, some don’t. If you can sneak off for half-an-hour to-morrow evening we’ll go and play at boats together.”