“I wonder if anyone has ever thought of burning an old dolls’ house,” said Michael thoughtfully. “It would be rather a rag. I’ve got an old toy fire-engine somewhere at home.”
“You baby,” said Lily.
“Well, it depresses me to see that dolls’ house all disused and upside down and no good any more. My kiddy sister gave hers to a hospital. What a pity I never thought of burning that,” sighed Michael regretfully. “I say, some time we must explore this room. It reminds me of all sorts of things.”
“What sort of things?” asked Lily indifferently.
“Oh, being a kid.”
“Well, I don’t want to be reminded of that,” said Lily. “I wish I was older than I am.”
“Oh, so do I,” said Michael. “I don’t want to be a kid again.”
Upstairs in the drawing-room it was still fairly light, but the backs of the grey houses opposite and the groups of ghostly trees that filmed the leaden air seemed to call for curtains to be drawn across the contemplation of their melancholy. Yet before they sat down by the crackling fire, Michael and Lily stood with their cheeks against the cold window-panes in a luxury of bodeful silence.
“No, you’re not to sit so close now,” Lily ordained, when by a joint impulse they turned to inhabit the room in which they had been standing. Michael saw a large photograph album and seized it.
“No, you’re not to look in that,” Lily cried.