“Is Miss Lynda in?” he asked, for they all clung to the titles of the old days.
“Not yet, Mister Con. She went out in a deal of a hurry long about three o’clock. She didn’t say a word—and that’s agin her pleasant fashion—so I took it that she had business that fretted her. She’s been in the workshop all day.” Thomas put the plates in place. They were white china, with delicate gold edges. “Hum! hum! Mister Con, your uncle used to say, when he felt talkative, that Miss Lynda ought to have some one to hold her back when she took to running.”
“I’ll look her up, Thomas!”
Conning went up to the workshop and turned on the electricity. A desolate sensation overcame the exhilaration of the afternoon. Lynda seemed strangely, ominously distant—as if she had gone upon a long, long journey.
There was a dying fire on the hearth and the room was in order except for the wide table upon which still lay the work Lynda had been engaged with before she left the house.
Truedale sat down before it and gradually became absorbed, while not really taking in the meaning of what he saw. He had often studied and appreciated Lynda’s original way of solving her problems. It was not enough for her to place upon paper the designs her trained talent evolved; she always, as she put it, lived in the rooms she conceived. Here were real furniture—diminutive, but perfect, and real hangings—colour and form ideal, and arranged so that they could be shifted in order that light effects might be tested.
It was no wonder Truedale had often remarked that Lynda’s work was so individual and personal—she breathed the breath of life in it before she let it go from her. Truedale had always been thankful that marriage had not taken from Lynda her joy in her profession. He would have hated to know that he interfered with so real and vital a gift.
But this room upon which he was now looking was different from anything he had ever before seen in the workshop. It interested and puzzled him.
Lynda’s specialties were libraries and living rooms; there were two or three things she never attempted—and this? Truedale looked closer. How pretty it was—like a child’s playroom—and how fanciful! There was a fireplace off in a corner, before which stood a screen with a most benign goblin warning away, with spread claws, any heedless, toddling feet. The broad window-seats might serve as boxes for childish treasure. There were delectable, wee chairs and conveniently low stools; there was a tiny bed set in a dim corner over which, on a protecting shield, angels with folded wings and rapt faces were outlined.
“Why, this must be a—nursery!” Truedale exclaimed half aloud; “and she said she would never design one.”