“You know the time by all the timepieces in Arcady.”
“I suppose I was born to see and to remember.”
They went into the little drawing-room that was Eve’s despair when she felt depressed. This room was Mrs. Carfax’s lararium, containing all the ugly trifles that she treasured, and some of the ugliest furniture that ever was manufactured. John Carfax had been something of an amateur artist, and a very crude one at that. He had specialised in genre work, and on the walls were studies of a butcher’s shop, a fruit stall, a fish stall, a collection of brass instruments on a table covered with a red cloth, and a row of lean, stucco-fronted houses, each with a euonymus hedge and an iron gate in front of it. The carpet was a Kidderminster, red and yellow flowers on a black ground, and the chairs were upholstered in green plush. Every available shelf and ledge seemed to be crowded with knick-knacks, and a stuffed pug reclined under a glass case in the centre of a walnut chiffonier.
Eve understood her mother’s affection for all this bric-à-brac, but to-night, when she came in out of the dew-washed dusk, the room made her shudder. She wondered what effect it would have on Canterton, though she knew he was far too big a man to sneer.
Mrs. Carfax, in black dress and white lace cap, sat in one of the green plush arm-chairs. She was always pleased to see people, and to chatter with amiable facility. And Canterton could be at his best on such occasions. The little old lady thought him “so very nice.”
“It is so good of you to come down and see Eve’s paintings. Eve, dear, fetch your portfolio. I am so sorry I could not come to Mrs. Canterton’s garden party, but I have to be so very careful, because of my heart. I get all out of breath and in a flutter so easily. Do sit down. I think that is a comfortable chair.”
Canterton sat down, and Eve went for her portfolio.
“My husband was quite an artist, Mr. Canterton, though an amateur. These are some of his pictures.”
“So the gift is inherited!”
“I don’t think Eve draws so well as her father did. You can see——”