He gazed about him with pride, standing in the middle of the Turkey carpet holding her close to his side.
'Now look at the window,' he said, turning her round when she had had time to absorb the staircase. 'Look—isn't it a jolly window? No nonsense about that window. You can really see out of it, and it really lets in light. Vera'—she winced—'tried to stuff it all up with curtains. She said she wanted colour, or something. Having got a beautiful garden to look out at, what does she try to do but shut most of it out again by putting up curtains.'
The attempt had evidently not succeeded, for the window, which was as big as a window in the waiting-room of a London terminus, had nothing to interfere with it but the hanging cord of a drawn-up brown holland blind. Through it Lucy could see the whole half of the garden on the right side of the front door with the tossing willow hedge, the meadows, and the cows. The leafless branches of some creeper beat against it and made a loud irregular tapping in the pauses of Wemyss's observations.
'Plate glass,' he said.
'Yes,' said Lucy; and something in his voice made her add in a tone of admiration, 'Fancy.'
Looking at the window they had their backs to the stairs. Suddenly she heard footsteps coming down them from the landing above.
'Who's that?' she said quickly, with a little gasp, before she could think, before she could stop, not turning her head, her eyes staring at the window.
'Who's what?' asked Wemyss. 'You do think it's a jolly window, don't you, little Love?'
The footsteps on the stairs stopped, and a gong she had noticed at the angle of the turn was sounded. Her body, which had shrunk together, relaxed. What a fool she was.
'Lunch,' said Wemyss. 'Come along—but isn't it a jolly window, little Love?'