It was Lord Dalbrook’s dressing-room actually, and altogether a sacred chamber. It had been one of the best bedrooms in the days of the Strangways; but his Lordship liked space, and had chosen this room for his den—a fine old room, with full length portraits of the Sir Joshua period let into the panelling. The furniture was of the plainest, and very different from the luxurious appointments of the other rooms, for these very chairs and tables, and yonder substantial mahogany desk, had done duty in James Dalbrook’s chambers in the Temple thirty years before. So had the heavy-looking clock on the chimney-piece, surmounted by a bronze Saturn leaning upon his scythe. So had the brass candlesticks, and the ink-stained red morocco blotter on the desk. He had fallen asleep in that capacious arm-chair many a time in the small hours, after struggling with the intricacies of a railway bill or poring over a volume of precedents.
The thick Persian carpet, the velvet window-curtains, panelled walls, and fine old fireplace gave a look of subdued splendour to the room, in spite of the dark and heavy furniture. There was a large vase of roses on the desk, where Lord Cheriton never tolerated a flower; and there were more roses on the chimney-piece; and some smart bamboo chairs, many coloured, like Joseph’s coat, had been brought from Nita’s morning room—and so, with logs blazing on the floriated iron dogs, and a scarlet tea-table set out with blue and gold china, and a Moorish copper kettle swinging over a lamp, the room had as gay an aspect as any one could desire.
Juanita had made her toilet by the time the tea-table was ready, and came in from her room next door, a radiant figure in a gleaming copper-coloured gown, flowing loose from throat to foot, and with no adornment except a broad collar and cuffs of old Venice point. Her brilliant complexion and southern eyes and ebon hair triumphed over the vivid hue of the gown, and it was at her Sir Godfrey looked as she came beaming towards him, and not at the dressmaker’s master-piece.
“How do you like it?” she asked, with childlike pleasure in her fine raiment. “I ought to have kept it till October, but I couldn’t resist putting it on, just to see what you think of it. I hope you won’t say it’s gaudy.”
“My dearest, you might be clad in a russet cloud for anything I should know to the contrary. A quarter of a century hence, when you are beginning to fancy yourself passée, we will talk about gowns. It will be of some consequence then how you dress. It can be none now.”
“That is just a man’s ignorance, Godfrey,” she said, shaking her finger at him, as she seated herself in one of the bamboo chairs, a dazzling figure in the light of the blazing logs, which danced about her eyes and hair and copper-coloured gown in a bewildering manner. “You think me handsome, I suppose?”
“Eminently so.”
“And you think I should be just as handsome if I dressed anyhow—in a badly-fitting Tussore, for instance, made last year and cleaned this year, and with a hat of my own trimming, eh, Godfrey?”
“Every bit as handsome.”
“That shows what an ignoramus a University education can leave a man. My dearest boy, half my good looks depend upon my dressmaker. Not for worlds would I have you see me a dowdy, if only for a quarter of an hour. The disillusion might last a lifetime. I dress to please you, remember, sir. It was of you I thought when I was choosing my trousseau. I want to be lovely in your eyes always, always, always.”