They are evidently quite at home here, and did not need any attention from me.
Antony Thornhirst was the only other guest unemployed, and he immediately rose and went to write letters in the hall, he said. He had refused to play bridge on account of this important correspondence.
So at last I got the two women off to their rooms, and was standing irresolutely for a second, glancing over the balustrade after closing the last door, when my kinsman looked up.
"Comtesse," he called, softly, "won't you come down and tell me when the post goes?"
I descended the stairs. He was standing at the bottom by one of the negro figures when I reached the last step.
"Have you not some quiet corner where we might sit and talk of our ancestors?" he asked, with a comic look in his cat's eyes. "This place is so draughty, and I am afraid of the bears! And we should disturb that loving couple in the library and the bridge-players in the drawing-room. Have you no suggestions for my comfort? I am one of your guests, too, you know!"
"There is Mrs. Gurrage's boudoir, that has straight-up, padded chairs and crimson satin, and there is my own, that is mustard yellow. Which could you bear best before dinner?" I said, laughing.
"Oh! the yellow—mustard is stimulating and will give me an appetite."
So we walked up the stairs again together and he followed me down the thickly carpeted passage to my highly gilded shrine.
For the first time since I have owned it, I felt sorry I had been too numb to make it nice. The house-maids arrange it in the morning, and there it stays, a monument of the English upholsterer's idea of a Louis XV. boudoir.