She laughed, trying to attune herself to his gay spirits; but when she lost the last faint sound on the gravel-path of the motor-cab that took him away, she went up to her room and cried foolishly, as she had not cried for years.
CHAPTER XVIII
ON Godfrey’s transference from Godalming, Baltazar, with characteristic suddenness, moved into a furnished house in London. The reasons for his sojourn at the inn existed no longer. Besides, books and other belongings were quickly usurping the cubic space at his disposal. Marcelle, urgently invited to a consultation, advised, according to her practical mind, a flat or a small house which he could furnish for himself; and she offered such aid as her duties would allow. He ruled out her suggestion. There must be rooms for Godfrey and Quong Ho whenever they should be in town; rooms for servants; decent living rooms, so that the inhabitants should not have to herd higgledy-piggledy together; also ample accommodation for Marcelle, should she care to change her mind. Nothing but a large house would suit him. As for waiting until painters, decorators, paper-hangers, curtain-makers, carpet-layers, electric-light fitters and suchlike war-attenuated tribes had completed their business, it was out of the question. It would take months. He wanted to establish himself in a ready-made home right now, and get on with the war. Such a home his friend Mrs. Jackman had suggested. The owner, poor fellow, killed in the war; the wife and a boy of thirteen left ill-provided for. As she could not afford to live in the house, and yet shrank from selling it and its precious contents, the boy’s heritage, she would be content to let it furnished for an indefinite period. There it was—Sussex Gardens—near the Park—admirable in every way. He was accustomed to spacious habitations. His house in Chen-Chow covered nearly an acre. In his exile at Spendale Farm he had room to breathe. The Godalming inn was charming in its way, but now and then he had mad impulses to attack the walls of his sitting-room with his nails and tear them down. What was wrong with Sussex Gardens?
“It’s extravagant, trouble-shirking, and generally manlike.”
“Marry me,” said he, “and you shall have a house economical, trouble-inviting and generally woman-like. Any kind of old house you consider ideal.”
“You’ll want four or five servants to run it,” she objected, ignoring his proposition. “Where are you going to get them from in these war times?”
“They’re already there. A cook who’ll act as housekeeper——”
“You’ll be robbed right and left.”
“Come and save me,” said Baltazar.
She laughed. “I’m tempted to do so, just out of pity for you.”