“You don’t know where it is,” said Thane.
“That’s so. Tell me how to find it.”
He wrote the directions down. Still, it was most indefinite. Some evening meant nothing at all. Thane took him by the shoulders and regarded him with an expression that John avoided.
“And I want you to come,” he said, with slow emphasis on the first pronoun. “To-morrow.”
“All right,” said John. “Meet me here at the office and I’ll go with you.”
It was a small house in a poor street, saved only by some large old trees. This surprised John, because Thane’s income was enough to enable them to live in a very nice way, in moderate luxury even. He was still more surprised at the indecorative simplicity of its furnishings. Thane’s nature was not parsimonious. He would not have stinted her. Then why had they set up a household more in keeping with the status of a first rate puddler than with that of the vice-president of a flourishing nail trust, receiving in salary and dividends more than twenty thousand a year? Yet simple, even commonplace as everything was there was evidence of taste beyond Thane’s. It must have been Agnes who did it.
The first thing Thane did on entering was to remove his collar and place it conspicuously on a table in the hallway by the foot of the staircase. “I forget that if I don’t see it going out,” he said. He unbuttoned the neck of his shirt, breathed and looked around with an air of satisfaction. “Beats living at a hotel,” he said, opening the door into a little front sitting room for John to see. “The only thing I picked out,” he said, “was that big chair,” referring to an enormous structure of hickory and rush that filled all one corner of the room. “I’ll show you upstairs,” he added. Coming to his own room he said: “This ain’t much to look at but that ain’t what it’s for. Nobody sees it.” It was furnished with a simple cot, another hickory chair and a plain pine table. On the table was a brass lamp ready to be lighted; also, tobacco jar, matches, some technical books, mechanical drawings, pencils and paper.
At the other end of the hall Thane stopped before a closed door. “She’s downstairs,” he said, at the same time knocking. He opened it softly, saying: “This is hers.” John got a glimpse of a little white bed, a white dressing table, some white chairs and two tiny pictures on the wall. A nun’s chamber could hardly have been more austere. He turned away. At the head of the staircase he looked back. Thane had momentarily forgotten him and was still standing on the threshold of the little white room gazing into it. Suddenly he remembered John, closed the door gently and joined him.
“We’ll see about supper,” he said, leading the way through the sitting room into the next one, where the table was spread.
Just then Agnes appeared from the kitchen, bearing a tray. John had another surprise. Her appearance made an unexpected contrast, so striking as to be almost theatrical. She wore a dainty apron. Behind that was an elaborate toilette. She was exquisite, lovely. His first thought was that she had prepared this effect for him. Yet he noticed that Thane was not in the least surprised. He looked at her calmly, taking it all for granted, as if this had been her normal way of appearing. And so it was.