“O! don’t trouble about me,” I said, “I am a seasoned vagrant. A rug, and the kitchen table, will serve my needs. When we have disposed your baggage——”
“I have no baggage.”
The shock of the retort! And yet I might have foreseen.
“It was all decided in such a hurry,” she said—“and at the last moment. There was no time to prepare anything.”
“Then——” I stood fairly petrified. “It all turns upon the resources of my wardrobe—mine.”
“If you please,” she said. “To-morrow we can arrange things better.”
“You must excuse me,” I answered. “You will understand that you find me as ill-prepared as yourself. If you will take a book—or a cigarette—I will go and see what can be done.”
She took a cigarette, impassively content, and I disappeared into the bedroom. There were her hat and cloak placed on a chair, and it gave me an odd turn to encounter those signs of feminine usurpation.
I could find sheets and linen; I could dispose my other effects, appropriately and with resignation. And then I paused, before producing from a drawer my smartest pair of clean pyjamas. I looked at the length, and shook my head; I turned up the cuffs and the end of each leg, folded and lay the things gently on the pillow, and returned to my visitor.
“I have done my best,” I said. “When it pleases you to retire——”