She stared at me with her mouth open.
“But what was the good of that?” she asked. “The moisture couldn’t hear you.”
“No. It couldn’t hear me,” I said, “it couldn’t hear me, Miss Botterill. But don’t you see that by apologizing to the moisture, I was conveying to Mr. Chrysostom, in the most trenchant way possible, my own opinion of his character.”
“No, I don’t,” said Miss Botterill. “I don’t see it at all.”
“Then I’ll explain it,” I said, “over again.”
Just at that moment, however, a customer entered the show-room, and although I waited for several minutes, another customer entered the show-room just as the first was departing. I therefore decided to leave the premises, spurning them, as I did so, with my right foot, and it was not until I had already turned into Ludgate Hill that I suddenly remembered my unused weapon. Mrs. Chrysostom Lorton—I had utterly forgotten her. Indeed I had never seen her since my first interview. But she had always been there, of course—there in the background—ready to be used in an emergency like this. I stopped short. Yes, I had forgotten her. But to have remembered her was to act at once. For there could be no doubt about it. It would be wholly impossible for her to afford to sit still and have me dismissed. I therefore advanced to the kerb-stone and hailed an omnibus, and within half an hour of conceiving the idea was in a third-class carriage leaving Liverpool Street Station upon my second visit to Enfield. Depressed as I was, too, both physically and mentally, in spite of my crushing rejoinder to Mr. Chrysostom, my spirits perceptibly rose as I neared my destination, stimulated by the memory of my previous triumph. For though a good many years had now elapsed since I last stood in that lascivious boudoir, Time had not dimmed the spiritual victory that it had been my privilege to gain there.
It was with an eye, therefore, comparatively clear that I once more approached Paternoster Towers and with a hand almost steady that I again knocked at its front door. Nor was the strange parlourmaid that received my card and presently conducted me to Mrs. Chrysostom’s room appreciably less respectful in her demeanour than the gentle domestic that had first received me. But the room itself, apart from its floor, which was now almost lecherous in its degree of polish, was so transformed that for several moments I could scarcely believe myself in the same apartment. Gone was the French-looking writing-table with its reflected legs. Gone was the nude huntress with the splinter in her calf. Gone was the oval mirror with its indelicate Cupids. Gone even was the photograph signed Your aff. Chrysostom. Nay, gone was the very couch with its sensuous cushions, and in its place stood a low divan, padded it was true, and not uncomfortably, but cushioned and draped with the sombrest purple.
There hung upon the walls, too, what were apparently lists of commandments, engraved upon parchment in foreign characters, while in each angle of the room stood a sort of shrine containing an alabaster image and an electric candle. Moreover, although it was still daylight, the curtains were drawn; a casket of incense swung from the ceiling; and between the lists of commandments, hung various religious implements, phylacteries, wands, and sacrificial knives.
Profound, and indeed disturbing, however, as were the changes in the room, those in Mrs. Chrysostom were even more remarkable, although in actual appearance she had altered very little since I had last been obliged to interview her. It was just conceivable, in fact, that for less disciplined eyes she might still have retained a certain attraction, not unenhanced by the severity of her gown and the sober arrangement of her hair. Parted at the side, this now fell over her brow in a single yellowish-coloured wave, while her dark dress—it was still clinging, I noticed—was unadorned in every respect. Her whole mien, too, was entirely different, and as she drooped, as it were, into the room, she extended her hand to me with a sort of grave surprise, as if I had been some stranger whom she had never seen.
“How do you do?” she said, sinking upon the divan. “This is my little temple. Won’t you sit down?”