Once more the change puzzled her, perhaps unreasonably.
At last Sylvia got up from the hard cane chair on which she had been sitting.
There had come over her, in the half-darkness, a very peculiar sensation—an odd feeling that there was something alive in the room. She looked down, half expecting to see some small animal crouching under the table, or hiding by the walnut-wood buffet behind her.
But, no; nothing but the round table, and the six chairs stiffly placed against the wall, met her eyes. And yet, still that feeling that there was in the room some sentient creature besides herself persisted.
She opened the door giving into the hall, and walked through the short passage which divided the house into two portions, into the tiny "salon."
Here also the closed shutters gave the room a curious, eerie look of desolate greyness. But Sylvia's eyes, already accustomed to the half-darkness next door, saw everything perfectly.
The little sitting-room looked mean and shabby. There was not a flower, not even a book or a paper, to relieve its prim ugliness. The only ornaments were a gilt clock on the mantelpiece, flanked with two sham Empire candelabra. The shutters were fastened closely, and the room was dreadfully hot and airless.
Once more Sylvia wondered why the Wachners preferred to live in this cheerless way, with a servant who only came for a few hours each day, rather than at an hotel or boarding-house.
And then she reminded herself that, after all, the silent, gaunt man, and his talkative, voluble wife, seemed to be on exceptionally good terms the one with the other. Perhaps they really preferred being alone together than in a more peopled atmosphere.
While moving aimlessly about the room, Sylvia began to feel unaccountably nervous and oppressed. She longed to be away from this still, empty house, and yet it seemed absurd to leave just as the Wachners would be returning home.