Mrs. Shepard had assured her on one occasion that Thomason never had a word to say to anybody—that he was a perverse and sullen creature.
Now it occurred to her that possibly Mrs. Shepard’s estimate might lack fairness. Anyway, it would be interesting to find out for herself. It would be a kind of adventure.
She tapped lightly on Thomason’s door.
After an interval of silence, during which one might have thought that the room itself was amazed, there was the sound of heavy feet approaching.
The door opened and Thomason stood on the threshold. Bonnie May had never been near enough to him really to see him before. Now she discovered that he had quaint creases about his mouth and eyes, and that his eyes were like violets. It was as if you had dropped some violets accidentally, and they had fallen in a strange place. There was a childish expression in Thomason’s eyes, and it occurred to Bonnie May that possibly he was afraid of people.
It seemed to her quite shocking that the little man should remain by himself always, because he was afraid of mingling with people.
Thomason’s eyes were very bright as he looked at her. Then he winked slowly, to facilitate thought. He was thinking: “She’s the one who does whatever she pleases.” Despite his habits of seclusion, Thomason was by no means oblivious to the life that went on in the mansion.
“May I come in?” asked Bonnie May. She did not worry about the absence of a spontaneous welcome. “It’s an adventure,” she was thinking.
Thomason laboriously turned about, with a slight list to leeward, and ambled to the middle of the room, where he sat down on a bench. He took up a pair of steel-rimmed glasses from which one temple had been broken and replaced by a piece of twine. He slipped the twine over his head and adjusted the glasses on his nose. It seemed necessary for him to sit quite still to keep this contrivance in place. When he reached around to his bed for a coat, which he had evidently been mending, he held his head and body as rigid as possible.
Bonnie May advanced into the room, her hands clasped before her, her eyes quite freely surveying her surroundings.