They were placed a little to the left of the glowing fire—Nancy had restored the fireplace in the big central dining-room—and the light took the brass of the andirons, and all the polished surface of copper and pewter and silver candelabra that gave the room its quality of picturesqueness.
“Some of those branching candlesticks are very beautiful,” he said; “the impression here is a little like that of a Catholic altar just before the mass. I’ve always thought I’d like to have my meals served in church, Saint-Germain-des-Prés for instance.”
“It is rather dim religious light.” Nancy had no wish to utter this banality, but it was forced from her by her desire to seem sympathetic.
“Can we go to your place for a little while to-night?”
These were the words she had spent her days and nights hungering for; yet now she hesitated for a perceptible instant.
“Yes, we can, of course. There is a friend of mine—Billy Boynton, up there this evening. He is not feeling very fit, and phoned to ask 232 if he could go up and sprawl before my fire, so, of course, I said he could.”
“Oh! yes, Sheila’s friend. Can’t he be disposed of?”
“I think so. We could try.”
But at Nancy’s apartment they found not only Billy, but Caroline, and the atmosphere was like that of the glacial regions, both literally and figuratively.
“Hitty had the windows open, and the fire went out, and I forgot to turn on the heat,” Billy explained from his position on the hearth where he was trying to build an unscientific fire with the morning paper, and the remains of a soap box. There was a long smudge across his forehead.