“You?” he said.
“Do you recognize me?” she said. “Aren’t I comical?”
She took him upstairs—first to the monumental bedroom.
“This was mother’s room,” she said. “Now it is mine.”
He looked at her, then at the things in the room, then out of the window, then at her again. She flushed, and hurried to show him his room, and the bath-room. Then she went downstairs.
He kept glancing up at the height of the ceilings, the size of the rooms, taking in the size and proportion of the house, and the quality of the fittings.
“It is a big house,” he said. “Yours?”
“Mine in name,” said Alvina. “Father left all to me—and his debts as well, you see.”
“Much debts?”
“Oh yes! I don’t quite know how much. But perhaps more debts than there is property. I shall go and see the lawyer in the morning. Perhaps there will be nothing at all left for me, when everything is paid.”