“Oh, I loved doing it!” she replied, and paused, flushing. She might have known that it would be simply impossible to talk to him about it! So she laid it down on the workbench, and, overcome by a sudden shyness, retreated toward the door.
“You're not going!” he exclaimed.
“I must—and you're busy.”
“Not at all,” he declared, “not at all, I was just killing time until supper. Sit down!” And he waved her to a magisterial-looking chair of Jacobean design, with turned legs, sandpapered and immaculate, that stood in the middle of the shop.
“Oh, not in that!” Janet protested. “And besides, I'd spoil it—I'm sure my skirt is wet.”
But he insisted, thrusting it under her. “You've come along just in time, I wanted a woman to test it—men are no judges of chairs. There's a vacuum behind the small of your back, isn't there? Augusta will have to put a cushion in it.”
“Did you make it for Mrs. Maturin? She will be Pleased!” exclaimed Janet, as she sat down. “I don't think it's uncomfortable.”
“I copied it from an old one in the Boston Art Museum. Augusta saw it there, and said she wouldn't be happy until she had one like it. But don't tell her.”
“Not for anything!” Janet got to her feet again. “I really must be going.”
“Going where?”