The Dean’s widow had left behind all her furniture, and was now adorning a Bournemouth hotel, in which her sprightly invalidism and close knowledge of the investments of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and of the habits and customs of the lesser clergy, were greatly appreciated. Some of the furniture did not wholly commend itself to Rosamund. There were certain settees and back-to-backs, certain whatnots and occasional tables, which seemed to stamp the character of the Dean’s widow as meretricious. But these could easily be “managed.” Rosamund was enchanted with the house, and went from room to room with Canon Wilton radiantly curious, and almost as excited as a joyous schoolgirl.
“I must poke my nose into everything!” she exclaimed.
And she did it, and made the Canon poke his too.
Presently, opening the lattice of the second window in the big, low-ceiled drawing-room, she leaned out to the moist and secluded garden. She was sitting sideways on the window-seat, of which she had just said, “I won’t have this dreadful boudoir color on my cushions!” Canon Wilton was standing behind her, and presently heard her sigh gently, and almost voluptuously, as if she prolonged the sigh and did not want to let it go.
“Yes?” he said, with a half-humorous inflection of the voice.
Rosamund looked round gravely.
“Did you say something?”
“Only—yes?—in answer to your sigh.”
“Did I? Yes, I must have. I was thinking——”
She hesitated, while he stood looking at her with his strong, steady gray-blue eyes.