Miss Holland’s voice came unheralded, startlingly out of the silence. She must have come through from the back room in noiseless slippers. Miriam answered that she had forgotten about clothes, and proposed nails in the attic.
“It will be no trouble at all. I have lengths of bamboo and still some yards of green material. We will regard any provision of French wardrobes down here as franking me to use the attic for my charts and other impedimenta. You, I observe, have no débris.”
“Only a few books.”
“You have a goodly store of books. I shall look forward to a treat.”
“There’s a book I’m reading now—” she began walking up and down the linoleum path in the excitement of wondering whether Miss Holland could be brought to share the adventure.
“It is in a way the most wonderful I have met. The most real.”
“No doubt you are a connoisseur.”
“I’m not. But I’ve never got so much out of a novel before. I say, this stuff shows every mark.”
Miss Holland would get nothing from James. She would read patiently for a while and pronounce him “a little tedious.”
“It will at first. But you need not be concerned about that. I am at home all day, and it will be a very slight matter to keep things more or less in order. Perhaps we can make a little bargain. I for my part will willingly undertake the rooms and the marketing if you will save me from the palavering.”