"Six times," said Ursula, smiling, but blushing a little too—I was glad to observe that.
"... and as often been replaced. Its charm for the observant visitor has, to put the thing mildly, long since vanished. I doubt if either of us would so much as see it had it not attained for me the fascination of an eye-sore. Yet it stays on, simply because no one has the initiative to take action. To put it concisely, it is a squatter."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I was never more serious in my life. This speckled travesty, this photographic mummy, is but one example out of many. I do not know whether other homes resemble ours in the same tendency towards the mausoleum. But I strongly suspect it."
"What things are there besides this?" broke out Ursula, suddenly defensive. "Tell me a list of them."
"You forget, sweetheart, that as a professional literary man my time, especially in the morning, has a certain commercial value, but I will endeavour to do as you ask. You would of course justly repudiate any comparison between your own artistic setting and those Victorian houses wherein the 'drawing-room book' reposed always in the same sacred corner. Yet in the matter of derelict articles we are millionaires, we are beset by squatters."
I could see that Ursula was impressed, though she tried to conceal the fact. "Professional literary men seem to be strangely under the dominion of one word," she began coldly.
At that moment a bell tinkled.
"Eliza!" cried Ursula; "and I'm not dressed." As she fluttered from the room I had a distinct impression that she was not sorry for an excuse to break off the interview.
I re-settled myself at my desk, smiling a little cynically. How long would the lesson last? Then I happened to glance towards the mantelpiece, beside which Ursula had been standing. There, hastily propped against the clock, was that detestable photograph. It still quivered in the movement of release, as though shaking its shoulders, settling down palpably for another decade. With an uncontrollable impulse I leapt up, seized the abomination and, flinging it on the floor, ground it to powder with my heel.