“I don’t want to see Tabitha,” Isola answered, with a touch of impatience. “If you are so bent upon seeing her I had rather you went alone.”
“But I had rather not spend a whole day away from you. As for Tabitha, a visit of ten minutes will be quite enough for me. I have brought her a Rhampoor Chuddah—a warm red one. I have only to make her my little gift, and to say a few words—without any anger—about her breach of faith.”
“It was really not a breach of faith. I gave her full permission to go. I was getting just a little tired of her fussiness. She was not my old servant, you know, Martin. I had not been used to her all my life, as you have.”
“Ah, but she is so good—such a thoroughly good woman.”
“Yes, she is good, no doubt.”
“Well, we’ll go to Falmouth together, and you can stop at the Green Bank, where we can lunch, while I go and find Tabitha. You know her address, I suppose?”
“Yes. She lives at No. 5, Crown Terrace, overlooking the harbour.”
This conversation took place in the garden, where they breakfasted, under a square striped awning, an apology for a tent, set up on the lawn by the river. A badly cooked breakfast seemed less offensive in the garden, where the summer air, and the perfume of the roses eked out the meal. After breakfast Disney called his wife to the drawing-room, where he had brought his spoil from the East, and laid his offerings, as it were, at the feet of his idol.
“See, love, here is a shawl which you can use as a couvre-pied,” he said, flinging a fine cashmere over a chair, “since Fashion decrees that women shall wear shawls no more. And here are some ivory chessmen to assist you in puzzling your brains over the game of Eastern antiquity; and here are vases and things for odd corners. And I have brought you a carved Persian screen, and some Peshawur curtains for your door-ways, and a lamp from Cairo, to make your drawing-room a little more fantastically pretty. I know you love these things.”
She was enraptured with his gifts. Her face lighted up like the face of a child, and she ran from one object to the other in a confused gladness, scarcely able to look at one thing at a time.