Meg stood leaning against the mantelpiece and waited.
It was a luxurious room—the room of a rich man, with a good idea of comfort. All the chairs were delightfully easy, the carpet was thick and soft, the light arranged with a view to reading and writing comfortably. Artistic it was not, and there was no bric-à-brac, and there were few books about.
Over the mantelpiece was the picture of an undraped nymph, lying on soft cushions in a bower of roses. A rounded-limbed, sensuous beauty, with velvety eyes half closed. The petals of the roses rested on her warm skin.
George's sister made a great many jokes about that picture, and called it George's ideal woman.
Meg, in her shabby black dress, looked whiter than ever as she stood beneath it tensely waiting.
There were groups of wax fruit (not remarkably well done) about the room too. Meg, had she seen them, would have guessed why she had got such remarkably good prices for her work; but she saw neither the fruit nor the picture—she saw only Barnabas and Newgate.
"What an ass you are, Lucas!" said Mr. Sauls, his voice sounding in the hall. "Go and tell the young woman that you know I am out on the best authority, for that I have just told you so myself."
A pause, and a deprecatory murmur from Lucas; then: "Would come in? The devil she would! These begging ladies deserve a snub. It's another Quakeress. Oh, very well, I'll tell her myself that I am out; and I don't think she'll do it again." And Meg heard his footsteps crossing the hall.
She pictured the imaginary Quakeress come to beg of George Sauls, and pitied her, imagination working in a curiously independent and rapid way, as it does in moments of suspense. Poor Quakeress! How could any woman stoop to beg from this man? Unless, indeed, it were a woman whose husband might have the life "choked out of him," and who was past caring for aught else!
What would he have said to the Quakeress? Would she have worn a bonnet like Mrs. Fry? Would Mr. Sauls have made her feel very hot and shy and ashamed?