The windows on one side looked out over the river, over barges going up on the full flood, and chimneys flying streamers of pearl-gray smoke. The windows on the other side opened on to a sea of roofs that rolled away down to a low line of purple cloud above whose bronzed and jagged edge the Byzantine tower of Westminster Cathedral rose in silhouette against a sky of primrose very lucent and serene. There was a wide fireplace with a scarred rug before it and on either side a deal seat with high straight back. There were divans by the same craftsman along the whitewashed walls, and shelves of tumbled books. Here and there were broken statues and isolated lead-bound panes of colored glass, with an easel and a model's throne and the trunk of a lay figure. There was a large table littered with papers and tins of pineapple and a broken bag of oranges very richly hued in the sunset. The floor was covered with matting, over which were scattered Persian rugs whose arabesques of mauve and puce were merged in a depth of warm color by the fleeting daylight. On the walls were autotypes of Mona Lisa and Botticelli's Venus, of the Prince of Orange and little Philip the Fourth, on his great horse. There was also an alleged Rubens, the purchase of Maurice's first year at Oxford, from the responsibility of whose possession he had never recovered. There were drawings on the wall itself of arms and legs and breasts and necks, and a row of casts in plaster of Paris. Here and there on shelves were blue ginger-jars, Burmese masks and rolls of Florentine end-papers. There was a grandfather-clock, lacquered and silent, which leaned slightly forward to ponder its appearance in a Venetian mirror whose frame was blown in a design of pink and blue roses and shepherds. The window-curtains were chintz in a pattern of faded crimson birds and brown vine-leaves stained with mildew. In one corner was a pile of brocaded green satin that was intended to cover the undulating horsehair sofa before the fire. Maurice's room was a new experience to Jenny. "What a shocking untidy place!" she exclaimed. "What! It's like Madge Wilson's mother's second-hand shop in the New Kent Road. You don't _live_ here?" "Yes, I do," said Maurice. "Sleep here?" "No; I sleep underneath. I've a bedroom with Castleton." "Untidy, like this is?" "No, rather tidy. Bath-tub, Sandow exerciser, and photographs of my sisters by Ellis and Walery. Quite English and respectable." Jenny went on: "Doesn't all this mess ever get on your nerves? Don't you ever go mad to clear it up?" "You shall be mistress here and clear up when you like." "All right, Artist Bill. I suppose you are an artist?" "I don't know what I am. I'd like best to be a sculptor. You must sit for me." "The only artist I ever sat for I took off my belt to in the finish." "Why?" "He annoyed me. Go on. What else are you?" "I'd like to be a musician."