CHAPTER V.
Sir Jekyl bethinks him of Pelter and Crowe.
The Baronet held his candle high in air, as I have said, as he gazed round him inquisitively. The thin housekeeper, with her pale lips closed, and her odd eyes dropped slantingly toward the floor, at the corner of the room, held hers demurely in her right finger and thumb, her arms being crossed.
The room was large, and the light insufficient. Still you could not help seeing at a glance that it must be, in daylight, a tolerably cheerful one. It was roomy and airy, with a great bow-window looking to the front of the building, of which it occupied the extreme left, reaching about ten feet from the level of the more ancient frontage of the house. The walls were covered with stamped leather, chiefly green and gold, and the whole air of the room, even in its unarranged state, though somewhat quaint and faded, was wonderfully gay and cozy.
"This is the green chamber, sir," she repeated, with her brows raised and her eyes still lowered askance, and some queer wrinkles on her forehead as she nodded a sharp bitter emphasis.
"To be sure it is, damme!—why not?" he said, testily, and then burst into a short laugh.
"You're not a going, I suppose, Sir Jekyl, to put anyone into it?" said she.
"I don't see, for the life of me, why I should not—eh? a devilish comfortable room."
"Hem! I can't but suppose you are a joking me, Sir Jekyl," persisted the gray silk phantom.