“Seasick, too?” inquired the doctor with his professional air. He was standing with his arm on the chimney-piece, looking alternately down on his friends and around the long, low room. It was a jolly room—the very essence of comfort and cosiness. It was a beautiful room, too, in a simple way; one which satisfied his sense of harmony in colours and fabrics—a keen sense with him, as it is apt to be with men of his profession.
“Judith likes this, too, you know,” Carey went on loyally. “She thinks it’s great. But how to get it for ourselves—that’s another matter. Somehow, you were lucky.”
“Did you ever happen to see,” asked Anthony, “a photograph I took, just for fun, of this house as it was when Juliet saw it first? No? Well, just look in that box on the end of the farther bookcase, will you? It’s near the top—there—that’s it.”
He lay looking up through half-closed lashes at the two men as they studied the photograph, the doctor leaning over Carey’s shoulder.
“On your word, man, did it look like that?” cried Barnes.
“Just like that.”
“Yes, I’ve heard it did,” admitted Carey; “but I never quite believed it could have been as bad as that.”
“Who planned it all?” the doctor asked, getting possession of the photograph as Carey laid it down, and giving it careful scrutiny.
“My little home-maker.”
“Jove—are there any more like her?”