Chapter Fifteen.
The World is Stuffed with Sawdust.
The Ravenhills kept house economically in South Kensington. True it is that the economies of life are among its heaviest expenditures, but necessity had not forced them into that dismal position. They lived prettily, and cared little for what they could not have. The house was charming, though the furniture might not have fetched much at a sale, the transforming genius, taste, not being marketable. Fresh chintzes and flowers, with old white Dresden, and Mrs Ravenhill’s watercolours on the walls, kept brightness even in the land of fog. The very morning after their return Millie came into the drawing-room and dropped a handful of flowers on a tray where glasses waited. She flitted about, setting a glass here and a glass there, until the room began to recover the homelike aspect which had been wanting. Millie from time to time contemplated it, her head on one side. Darting out of the room, she returned with certain Norwegian treasures, for which room had to be found. A queerly-painted old wooden bowl with horse-head handles was whisked from table to table, until it rested on a high stool. A small model of a spinning-wheel went to live under a minute palm. Spoons joined a silver family. All was arranged when Mrs Ravenhill came in from more prosaic domestic duties, and smiled at Millie’s haste. Looking at the bowl, she admired the arrangement, but begrudged the stool.
“So few things as there were in the room vacant for emergencies!”
“It was made for it; and it looks happier already. I have always felt for the poor thing waiting for stray uses; with only once a week a cup or a book bestowed upon it.”
“Well—!” Mrs Ravenhill resigned the point. “And soon we shall want a reminder or two, for once again under the shadow of the butcher and baker, I doubt fjords and mountains being real.”
Millie allowed this to pass. “They will be turning homewards by this time,” she remarked.
“Who? Oh, the Martyns. And they have the crossing before them. There we have the advantage.”
“I liked the Ceylon,” said Millie.
“Do you mean you would go through it again?”