“You’ll join me in some whisky and soda?” he asked pleasantly, fumbling with the wire.
“Oh mercy, no!” said Vestalia. “Really I mustn’t touch anything more. I see now that I have been drinking far too much, all day long.”
“Tut!” he answered. “How could there be too much on a birthday? And now I think of it, there were two of them! I pledge my word, it has been a singularly dry occasion for a double birthday. We must hasten to make good the deficiency.”
Vestalia had drawn off her gloves. She rose now, and standing before the mantel-mirror, lifted her hat from her head. Then she turned and, half-playfully, half in pleading, shook her bright curls at him. “I thought it was going to be different hereafter,” she said, softly.
He looked inquiry for an instant, then nodded comprehension. “Ay,” he said, with gravity, “you’re a wise virgin. This one glass shall last me the night. You are very welcome here, my lady!”
She smiled at the lifted tumbler, over which his eyes regarded her. “What lots of books you have!” she exclaimed, a moment later, and began an inspection of the room, lingering in turn before each of the old prints on the dingy walls, and examining the rows of volumes in detail. He loitered beside her for a little, passing comments on what seemed to interest her. Then he disappeared in an adjoining room, and returned presently in a loose velveteen jacket and slippers. He took the famous dressing-bag from the table.
“Your visit isn’t at all over yet,” he remarked; “but I am consumed with a desire to see you sitting opposite me, here, in those wee soft slippers of yours. It will make a sweet picture for me to carry into dreamland. And so first I will show you your new home.”
She followed him out into the hall, and then through the doors he unlocked into the apartments of the mysterious “Mr. Linkhaw.” The first room disclosed itself, when the gas was lit, to be similar to David’s in size, but all else was strangely different. The Turkey red carpet was brilliant, almost garish, in its newness, and the ceiling was covered with a bright pink paper. All round three sides were broad divans, heaped with soft red cushions and downy pillows. No chairs were to be seen. More singular still, the walls were crowded with the stuffed heads of animals—bisons, bears, moose, elks, antelopes, wolves, and endless varieties of deer. Vestalia gazed at these trophies of the chase with surprise.
“Linkhaw is a mighty hunter before the Lord,” Mosscrop explained. “Yon is the bedroom. It is fairly carpeted with the skins of tigers, lions, leopards, and such like beasts. If you dream of jungles and Noah’s ark to-night, and don’t like it, we’ll throw them all out in the morning.”
“But what am I doing in this Mr. Link-haw’s rooms?” inquired the girl. “I don’t understand it at all. Suppose he should come?”