"For the present. I am leaving there soon."
"The sooner the better. Come in."
He put a heavy and peremptory hand upon her arm and drew her over the threshold, across the tiny passage called the hall, into one of the two bow-windowed rooms.
"This is the dining-room," he said. "Sit down."
To free her arm from his hand she obeyed him, and with an effort to appear very much at her ease looked about her.
"What a sweet little room!" she said.
"You like it? I thought you would. Look at the picture over the sideboard."
It was a large print—much too large for the room—of "The Last Sleep of
Argyle," and was faced on the opposite wall by a reproduction of "The
Execution of Montrose."
"They're proof prints," he told her proudly. "I remember you went to see those pictures, years ago, when they were on show in Brockenham, and liked them. I've had the chairs covered with red leather 'stead of horsehair. It costs more, but you used to say red was cheerful."
"It is so very nice, Mr. Gibbon."