The upper part of the house was very simply arranged, there being a central hall, with chambers opening off it on either side. At the rear end of the hall was a door opening upon a flight of steps, beyond which lay the passage from which the servants’ rooms opened, and from which the servants’ staircase led down to the kitchen.
“The room at the left is yours, Octavia,” said Mrs. Artress. “You will find two dressing-rooms attached, such as they are. The chamber just opposite, here upon the right, is Miss Wynde’s. Permit me to show you into your room, Miss Neva.”
She opened a door upon her right, and ushered Neva into a long ante-room, furnished as a bed-chamber. Beyond this ante-room, the door open between them, was a large square bed-room, where candles were burning in battered silver sconces.
“This ante-room was intended for the use of your maid,” remarked Mrs. Artress, “but as you did not bring your maid, and as Celeste is to attend upon you as well as upon Octavia and me, she may as well occupy your ante-room. In fact, we are so cramped for habitable quarters, that I have been compelled to assign it to her. How do you like your room?”
It was decently furnished, with a new carpet, curtains, and green roller blinds. There was a wood fire on the broad, old-fashioned hearth. The high-post bedstead, a modern armed chair and a low chintz-covered couch were particularly noticeable.
“You have a dressing-room beyond, Miss Wynde,” said Mrs. Artress, as Neva did not answer, pointing out a large light closet adjoining the bedroom. “This is a dear, delightful, out-of-the-world place, is it not?”
Neva deliberately looked into the closet, and surveyed the walls.
“I see no outlet from this room except through the ante-room,” she said abruptly.
“There is none. Those queer old-fashioned architects were very outlandish in their ideas; but then an ante-room is convenient, my dear—”
Neva checked Mrs. Artress’ familiarity by a haughty gesture. She had not liked the woman when Mrs. Artress had been Lady Wynde’s silent and unobtrusive gray companion, and she liked her still less now that she had bloomed into a devotee of fashion, and was obtrusively and offensively familiar and patronizing.