But what was it that made her eyes fall as they encountered mine, and wander furtively round the room; and why that sudden look of fear that crept into them as they alighted on the fireplace.
“You wont mind sitting here till bedtime, will you?” she observed, “I will tell Webster, my maid, to bring you your candle at eleven o’clock. If there is anything you want, you have only to tell HER. All our guests play bridge, and I concluded from what Robert told me you didn’t approve of gambling, so I thought you would be happier here. We are expecting other anti-gamblers in a few days, so your banishment will only be temporary! You will excuse us for a time, wont you?”
What other reply could I give but “O yes! most certainly! It is indeed kind of you to allow me the use of such a lovely room, &c.,” and Lady Wentworth departed from my presence with a gracious—a most patronising and highly gracious smile. I was of course charmed and flattered, as any poor connection by marriage should be, but I wished all the same that Robert had also come to welcome me, I should have felt more at ease with Robert! I liked Robert, and—well, I did not like his beautiful and accomplished wife. Had he come only for two minutes I should not have minded, but I was tired, I felt neglected, and I longed for kindness. Kindness after St. Rudolphs. It was not like Robert, we had been such friends in our youth; children together, playmates, chums! Had money and position changed his nature?
Money! I grew dispirited! I was poor! terribly poor! I was lonely! Oh, so lonely!
The room was huge, the night cold and the fire SMALL—very small.
Drawing my chair close to it I simulated ease; I tried to feel cosy! Cosy!
What a barrier, an insurmountable barrier, was poverty to pleasure! Would Robert’s wife have banished a countess? Fancy a countess experiencing a reception such as this! A countess in a vast room empty save for draughts and a Liliputian fire! A countess! I laughed! I was growing common like the mediocre parents of St. Rudolphs. Vulgarity is catching! It is both epidemic and endemic.
Had Robert told her I disapproved of playing cards for money? Of course not, that was a society taradiddle! He couldn’t know my scruples or he would never have asked me to meet his wife. She, she had guessed my poverty by my profession—all schoolmistresses are poor; every one that teaches is poor—education must be gratis. A cold blast of air from the chimney made me shiver. The room was indeed draughty! and how still! I did not altogether like such stillness, it got on my nerves. And how dark! Why were not all the gas jets lighted—why only this one? Because I was poor; the poor should learn to be economical, and example is better than precept! Hence this feeble flicker: a flicker that failing to reach the further extremities of the chamber, left the corners enveloped in shrouds of darkness—of a black impenetrable darkness I could neither fathom nor comprehend. The furniture was superb, but it was of too funereal a texture and colour to be pleasing to me just then, I would have preferred something of a brighter tone.
The floor was covered by a carpet that must assuredly have been made expressly for that room since it stretched right up to the skirting, concealing every particle of bare board.
I could not see the pattern, I could only devise by the soft tread of the carpet that it was either of Persian or Turkish manufacture. In some places, where kissed by the moonlight, it was almost white, whilst in other parts it was rendered black by a hotch-potch of countless shadows lying thick upon it.