Of the excitement which had disturbed—I had almost said, profaned—her beautiful face, not a vestige remained. Pale, composed, resolute, she said, "I am ready," and led the way out.
The man whom she hated offered his arm. She took it!
CHAPTER XIII
THE CLARET JUG
I perceived but one change in the Lodger's miserable room, since I had seen it last.
A second table was set against one of the walls. Our boiling water for the tea was kept there, in a silver kettle heated by a spirit-lamp. I next observed a delicate little china vase which held the tea, and a finely-designed glass claret jug, with a silver cover. Other men, possessing that beautiful object, would have thought it worthy of the purest Bordeaux wine which the arts of modern adulteration permit us to drink. This man had filled the claret jug with water.
"All my valuable property, ostentatiously exposed to view," he said, in his bitterly facetious manner. "My landlord's property matches it on the big table."
The big table presented a coarse earthenware teapot; cups and saucers with pieces chipped out of them; a cracked milk jug; a tumbler which served as a sugar basin; and an old vegetable dish, honored by holding delicate French sweet-meats for the first time since it had left the shop.
My deaf friend, in boisterously good spirits, pointed backwards and forwards between the precious and the worthless objects on the two tables, as if he saw a prospect that delighted him.