Ronder, washed and brushed, came down to tea, looked about him, and saw that all was good.
"I congratulate you, Aunt Alice," he said--"excellent!"
Miss Ronder very slightly flushed.
"There are a lot of things still to be done," she said; nevertheless she was immensely pleased.
The drawing-room was charming. The stencilled walls, the cushions of the chairs, the cover of a gate-legged table, the curtains of the mullioned windows were of a warm dark blue. And whatever in the room was not blue seemed to be white, or wood in its natural colour, or polished brass. Books ran round the room in low white book-cases. In one corner a pure white Hermes stood on a pedestal with tiny wings outspread. There was only one picture, an excellent copy of "Rembrandt's mother." The windows looked out to the garden, now veiled by the dusk of evening. Tea was on a little table close to the white tiled fireplace. A little square brass clock chimed the half-hour as Ronder came in.
"I suppose Ellen will be over," Ronder said. He drank in the details of the room with a quite sensual pleasure. He went over to the Hermes and lifted it, holding it for a moment in his podgy hands.
"You beauty!" he whispered aloud. He put it back, turned round to his aunt.
"Of course Ellen will be over," he repeated.
"Of course," Miss Ronder repeated, picking up the old square black lacquer tea-caddy and peering into it.
He picked up the books on the table--two novels, Sentimental Tommy, by J. M. Barrie, and Sir George Tressady, by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mr. Swinburne's Tale of Balen, and The Works of Max Beerbohm. Last of all Leslie Stephen's Social Rights and Duties.