I looked round at the room; it looked like the inside of a shell. Fairies seemed to have furnished it. I never saw such exquisite things before. There were cabinets inlaid with copper on ebony, and Venice glass that seemed coloured with tints of the sea. A wood fire was burning on the tiled hearth, and a great bowl of violets stood on a table supported by carved dragons with jewels for eyes. The smell of the violets made me feel faint every now and then, but the faintness went away when I remembered this Geraldine was a boy. "Remember that," I kept repeating to myself. And in the middle of the room sat Geraldine.
The long French windows were open, and the garden, all damp and sad-coloured, lay outside. Great chrysanthemums, potted out, were nodding under the marble-coloured sky, and they all seemed nodding at Geraldine. When a hitch came in the thread Geraldine's under lip would pout out. I felt now and then as if I were acting in a play, and the chrysanthemums' faces were the faces of the audience. Perhaps they were. Anyhow, I had learnt my part very badly, so it seemed to me.
The tapestry was a great blessing; one could speak or not as one pleased, and I generally preferred—not. I fell to wondering does she remember anything of that hunting morning so long ago: does she remember the poison, has she forgiven the poisoner, and has God?
Then I began to talk to her again and she answered in a low measured voice that sounded to me like a bell from the far past, yet in spite of the ghostly kind of sadness with which her voice filled me, some of her answers made me laugh.
She didn't know how to read; that came out in the course of our scrappy conversation.
"But, Geraldine, why—you've never read your Bible, then?"
One might have thought from my tone that I was a shocked Sunday-school superintendent, and it really did seem shocking to me that a person should never have read the Bible.
"What is my Bible?" asked Geraldine, staring at me, half-frightened at my astonishment.
"Oh, it's a book. I'll tell you about it some other time, but—but you can't know Geography. Do you know where Japan is, Geraldine, or India?"
Geraldine's head shook. She looked dazed.