Bread and cheese! He thought of a slice of homemade bread with a piece of Swiss cheese lying upon it. He had had nothing to eat since twelve o’clock. Bread and cheese! How he longed for that! And how he appreciated the plain and simple life which provided meals of no matter what sort at reasonable hours!
It came into his mind that he would go upstairs and see his Aunt Kate again. Just see her. He didn’t want to talk to her; simply, it was a comfort to know that she was there, his ally. She felt as he did; their ideals were the same. Plain, sensible people.
He went out of the library and began to mount the stairs. A miserable little jet of gas burned in the lower hall, and another one on the landing, and they both sang a sad little piping tune. The house seemed vast, this evening, a place of black shadows and chilly silence, and many closed, menacing doors.
He thought of Mrs. Dexter’s flat, with its homemade furniture and its pathetic brightness. This was, of course, a fine, solid old house, and the flat was a cheap and paltry thing. A girl would be glad, wouldn’t she, to leave such a place, to leave the noise and dust of the city, and come here?
Of course there was this unaccountable malady which had attacked first himself and now Mrs. Boles. But it had left him overnight, and she, too, would no doubt be quite recovered in the morning. An odd sort of cold, that was all it was.
He knocked upon the door, and Mrs. Boles called “Come in!” and in he went. The gas was turned low, and by the dim light the room looked remarkably cheerless. Mrs. Boles lay flat on her back, her gray hair in two braids, like an Indian, her gaunt, weather-beaten face immobile, her eyes staring straight before her.
“Desborough!” she said, without turning her head.
He waited, thinking she was going to go on, but she said nothing further.
“How are you feeling now?” he asked.
She didn’t trouble to answer that.