Richard would go off his head if he heard Mamma sigh.
He wants to be by himself the whole time, "working like blazes." He likes to feel that the very servants are battened down in the basement so that he doesn't know they're there. He couldn't stand Tiedeman and Peters if they weren't doing the same thing. Tiedeman working like blazes in the flat above him and Peters working like blazes in the flat below.
Richard slept in this room last night. He will sleep in it again when I'm gone.
She switched the light on to look at it for another second: the privet-white panelled cabin, the small wine-coloured chest of drawers, the small golden-brown wardrobe, shining.
My hat's in that wardrobe, lying on Richard's waistcoat, fast asleep.
If Tiedeman's flat's up there, that's Richard walking up and down over my head…. If it rains there'll be a row on the skylight and he won't sleep. He isn't sleeping now.
III.
It would be much nicer to walk home through Kensington Gardens and Hyde
Park.
She was glad that they were going to have a quiet evening. After three evenings at the play and Richard ruining himself in hansoms and not sleeping…. After this unbelievable afternoon. All those people, those terribly important people.
It was amusing to go about with Richard and feel important yourself because you were with him. And to see Richard's ways with them, his nice way of behaving as if he wasn't important in the least, as if it was you they had made all that fuss about.