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ONE:It was but a few months ago that Mr Keeling, taking advantage of a break in the lease of his own house, and the undoubted bargain that he had secured in this more spacious residence, had bought the freehold of The Cedars, and had given the furnishing and embellishment of it (naming the total sum not to be exceeded) into the hands of his wife and the head of the furnishing department in his stores. The Gothic porch, already there, had suggested a scheme to the artistic Mr Bowman, and from it you walked into a large square hall of an amazing kind. On the floor were red encaustic tiles with blue fleurs-de-lis, and the walls and ceiling were covered with the most expensive and deeply-moulded Lincrusta-Walton paper of Tudor design with alternate crowns and portcullises. It was clearly inconvenient that visitors should be able to look in through the window that opened on the carriage-sweep; so Mr Bowman had arranged that it should not open at all, but be filled with sham{15} bottle-bottoms impervious to the eye. In front of it stood a large pitch-pine table to hold the clothings and impedimenta of out-of-doors, and on each side of it were chairs of Gothic design. The fireplace, also new, had modern Dutch tiles in it, and a high battlemented mantel-shelf, with turrets at the corners. For hats there was a mahogany hat-rack with chamois-horns tipped with brass instead of pegs, and on the Lincrusta-Walton walls were trophies of spears and battle-axes and swords. Mr Bowman would have left the hall thus in classic severity, but his partner in decoration here intervened, and insisted on its being made more home-like. To secure this she added a second table on which stood a small stuffed crocodile rampant holding in his outstretched forelegs a copper tray for visitors calling cards. Mrs Keeling was very much pleased with this, considering it so quaint, and when her friends called, it often served as the header-board from which they leaped into the sea of conversation. The grate of the fire-place, empty of fuel, in this midsummer weather, was filled with multitudinous strips of polychromatic paper with gilt threads among it, which streamed from some fixed point up in the chimney, and suggested that a lady with a skirt covered with ribbons had stuck in the chimney, her head and body being invisible. By the fireplace Mrs Keeling had placed a painted wheelbarrow with a gilt spade, containing fuchsias in{16} pots, and among the trophies of arms had inserted various Polynesian aprons of shells and leather thongs brought back by her father from his voyages; these the outraged Mr Bowman sarcastically allowed added colour about which there was no doubt whatever. Beyond this hall lay a farther inner one, out of which ascended the main staircase furnished (here again could be traced Mr Bowmans chaste finger) with a grandfathers clock, and reproductions of cane-backed Jacobean chairs. From this opened a big drawing-room giving on the lawn at the back, and communicating at one end with Mrs Keelings boudoir. These rooms, as being more exclusively feminine, were inspired in the matter of their decoration by Mrs Keelings unaided taste; about them nothing need be said beyond the fact that it would take any one a considerable time to ascertain whether they contained a greater number of mirrors framed in plush and painted with lilies, or of draped pictures standing at angles on easels. Saddlebag chairs, damask curtains, Landseer prints, and a Brussels carpet were the chief characteristics of the dining-room.It was hot in here: except in summer a fire was always lit in the evening to keep damp out, unless he counter-ordered it, and he drew up the blind and opened the French window that gave on to the garden. An oblong of light cast itself outside, and in it he saw a row of daffodils that bordered the lawn across the gravel path, nodding in the night wind. They were very yellow: they would cast yellow reflections on anything near them.... TWO:She gave him a cheerful kiss, she tapped the{311} barometer, and, taking Alice in tow, she left him. Their cheerful voices, talking about the slippers, died away as they went upstairs.Then awoke hunger in his heart, and it screamed out to him, starving. Perhaps she had not gone: perhaps she, like himself, had experienced a numbness of the heart, that made her feel that she did not care. He had been stupid and tongue-tied this afternoon, he had not shown her the depth of his passion, he had not made her listen to him. He had not done that: it was that she was waiting for, eager to be overmastered, to be made unable to resist. Surely she had not gone....{321}
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ONE: TWO:You are rather late, he said.
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ONE:After a few minutes we quitted the public way by an obscure path in the woods on our right. When we had followed this for two or three miles we turned to the left again and pressed as softly as we could into a low tangled ground where the air seemed stagnant and mosquitoes stung savagely. We wiped away the perspiration in streams. I pushed forward to Ferry's side and whispered my belief that at last we were to see rain.Whereat Ccile replied, "Ah--well! we cou'n' like you the leaz bit any-'ow." TWO:Very sorry. If you want a couple of days off, just arrange in your department. Then the copy of the Rape of the Lock illustrated by Beardsley came yesterday too. I like it better than anything Ive seen of his.
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ONE:Yes, sir, I am very fond of them, she said, finishing an entry.I didnt hear you, said Alice. TWO:Frank could not answer, and the question was propounded to Dr. Bronson; the latter shook his head, and then Fred responded, in triumph, "Because he is a slow pup." It was three seconds at least before Frank could see the point of the joke.
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ONE: TWO:JAPANESE PLOUGHING. JAPANESE PLOUGHING."Now," continued Frank, "there are thirty-two points of the compass; do you know them?"
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