“You’ll excuse the untidiness,” Barnes called out after him, in a tone of rather strained jocularity.
Of Michael’s old room no vestige remained. A very large double-bed took up almost all the space, and all the furniture was new and tawdry. The walls were hung with studies of cocottes pretending to be naiads and dryads, horrible women posed in the silvanity of a photographer’s studio. The room was littered with clothes, and Michael could not move a step without entangling his feet in a petticoat or treading upon hidden shoes. He tried to splash his face, but the very washstand was sickly.
“Well, you’ve managed to debauch my bedroom quite successfully,” he said to Barnes, when he came back to the sitting-room.
“That’s all right. I’ll get rid of all the new furniture. I can pop the lot. Well, it’s mine. If I could find this bloody watch-bracelet, I could begin to make some arrangements.”
“What about breakfast?” Michael began to look for something to eat. Every plate and knife was dirty, and there were three or four half-finished tins of condensed milk which had turned pistachio green and stank abominably.
“There’s a couple of herrings somewhere,” said Barnes. “Or there was. But everything seems upside-down this morning. Where the hell is that watch? It can’t have walked away on its own. If that mare took it! I’ve a very particular reason for not wanting to lose that watch. Oh, —— ——! wherever can it have got to?”
“Well, anyway shut up using such filthy language. When does the milkman come round?”
“I don’t know when he comes round. Here, Fane, have you ever heard of anyone talking in their sleep?”
“Of course I’ve heard of people talking in their sleep,” Michael answered. “It’s not very unusual.”
“Ah, hollering out, yes—but talking in a sensible sort of a way, so that if you came in and listened to what they said, you’d think it was the truth? Have you ever heard of that?”