"Tired? I shall not sleep a wink for hours. The fire is sure to be laid in the tower-room."
They went into the small circular room, furnished in several shades of green, that Isabel had retained for her own use, and while she shook down her skirts Gwynne applied a match to the coals. The raw morning air had penetrated the house, too old-fashioned to have a furnace, but wooden walls are quickly heated. When Gwynne had removed the blower several times and satisfied himself that the hard coals would burn, he resumed the perpendicular.
He looked doubtfully at Isabel, who was still wrapped in her cloak, and had elevated her feet, covered with the long carriage-boots, to the fender. "Sha'n't you take off those things?" he asked. "You don't look as if you meant to stay."
"You can take off the boots, but I'll keep on my coat for a few moments."
He laughed as he knelt again. "I certainly am getting broken in. I have known Englishwomen to pull off their husband's hunting-boots after a hard day's work—"
"The idea!"
"Very good idea. Do you mean that you would not?"
"Well, I might, as a return favor. You need not take all night to pull off mine."
"You might, at least, let virtue be its own reward. It's not often it has the chance."
"Well, get up and don't be an idiot. I suppose you have been flirting in the conservatory all the evening and haven't had time to readjust your mood."