“I don’t want anything to eat, thank you, Gordon,” she returned from another room.
“You ought to eat,” he called back, attacking the pork. Then he muttered, “—full of ideas and airs. Soft.”
III
Beyond the dining room was their bedroom, and beyond that a chamber which, for years in a state of deserted, semi-ruin, Gordon had had newly floored and rendered weather-proof, and now used as a place of assemblage. He found Lettice there when he had finished supper.
She was sitting beside a small table which held a lighted lamp with a shade of minute, woven pieces of various silks. Behind her was a cottage organ, a mass of fretted woodwork; a wall pierced by a window was ornamented by a framed photograph of a woman dead and in her coffin. The photograph had faded to a silvery monotony, but the details of the rigid, unnatural countenance, the fixed staring eyes, were still clear. Redly varnished chairs with green plush cushions and elaborate, thread antimacassars, a second table ranged against the wall, bearing a stout volume entitled “A Cloud of Witnesses,” and a cheap phonograph, completed the furnishing.
It was warm without, but Lettice had shut the window, the shawl was still about her shoulders. She was sewing upon a small piece of white material.
“Here, General, here,” Gordon commanded, and the dog followed him seriously into the room. “Pat him, Lettice, so’s he’ll get to know you,” he urged.
“I don’t think I want to,” she began; but, at her husband’s obvious impatience, she experimented doubtfully, “Here, puppy.”