“Oh, if you don’t mind,” she said angrily, and went out, leaving Elizabeth with an odd sense of anticipation.
Elizabeth found David standing before the writing-table, and looking at himself in the little Dutch mirror which hung above it. He turned as she came in.
“Well,” he said bitterly, “has Mary renounced the Bazaar in order to stay and protect you? I’m not really as dangerous as she seems to think, though I am willing to admit that I am not exactly ornamental. Give me some tea, and I’ll not inflict myself on you for long.”
Elizabeth smiled.
“You know very well that I like having you here,” she said in her friendly voice. “Look at my flowers. Aren’t they well forward? I really think that everything is a fortnight before its time this year. No, not that chair, David. This one is much more comfortable.”
Markham was coming in with the tea as Elizabeth spoke. David sat silent. He watched the tiny flame of the spirit-lamp, the mingled flicker of firelight and daylight upon the silver, and the thin old china with its branching pattern of purple and yellow flowers. He drank as many cups of tea as Elizabeth gave him, and she talked a little in a desultory manner, until he had finished, and then sat in a silence that was not awkward, but companionable.
David made no effort to move, or speak. This was a pleasant room of Elizabeth’s. The brown panels were warm in the firelight. They made a soft darkness that had nothing gloomy about it, and the room was full of flowers. The great brown crock full of daffodils stood on the window-ledge, and on the table which filled the angle between the window and the fireplace was another, in which stood a number of the tall yellow tulips which smell like Maréchal-Niel roses. Elizabeth’s dress was brown, too. It was made of some soft stuff that made no sound when she moved. The room was very still, and very sweet, and the sweetness and the stillness were very grateful to David Blake. The thought came to him suddenly, that it was many years since he had sat like this in Elizabeth’s room, and the silence had companioned them. Years ago he had been there often enough, and they had talked, read, argued, or been still, just as the spirit of the moment dictated. They had been good comrades, then, in the old days—the happy days of youth.
He looked across at Elizabeth and said suddenly:
“You are a very restful woman, Elizabeth.”
She smiled at him without moving, and answered: