At the summit of the High Street, hard by the Leycester Hospital, they
came to the doorway of a small shuttered shop, over which by the light of
a street lamp one could read the legend, "J. Marvin, Secondhand
Bookseller." The girl opened the door with a latchkey. An oil lamp burned
in an office at the back of the shop--if that can be spoken of as a
separate room which was, in fact, entirely walled off with books laid flat
and rising in stacks from the floor. The place, in fact, suggested a cave
or den rather than a shop, with stalagmites of piled literature and a
subtle pervading odour of dust and decayed leather. The girl, after
shutting the bolts behind her, led the way cautiously, and, crossing a
passage at the rear of the shop, opened a door upon a far more cheerful
scene. Here, in a neat parlour hung with old prints and mezzotints and
water-colours, a hanging lamp shed its rays on a China bowl heaped with
Warwickshire roses, and on a white cloth and a table spread for supper.
"H'm!" grunted Rosewarne, glancing in through the doorway, while she lit a
candle for him at the foot of the stairs. "Your father and I used to sup
in the kitchen, with old Selina to wait on us."
"But since there is no longer any Selina! I had to pension her off, poor
old soul, and she is gone to the almshouse."
She handed him the light.
"Now, if you will go up to your room, I will fetch the hot water, and then
you must give me your change of clothes. They shall be warmed for a few
minutes at the kitchen fire, and you shall have them hot-and-hot."
"It seems to me that while all this is doing, you will stand an excellent
chance of rheumatic fever."
"Oh, I shall be all right," she announced cheerfully. "No--don't look at
me, please. I know very well that the dye has run out of these crapes,
and my face is beautifully streaked with black! Can you walk upstairs
alone? Very well. And if you feel another attack coming, you are to call
me at once."
She must have been expeditious; for when he came downstairs again he found
her awaiting him in the parlour, clad in a frock of duffel-grey, which,
with her damp, closely plaited hair, gave her a Quakerish look. Yet the
frock became her; the natural wave of her hair, defying moisture, showed
here and there rebelliously, and her cheeks glowed after a vigorous
towelling.
Rosewarne drew from under his coat a bottle of champagne, and set it on
the table, where the lamp's ray fell full on its gold foil. Her eyes
opened wide; for he had always visited this house in his oldest clothes
and passed for a poor man.
"Since you insist upon the parlour," said he, "I must try to live up to
it." He produced a knife from his pocket, with a pair of nippers, and
began to cut the wire. "Why are you wearing grey?" he demanded.
She flushed. "This is my school frock. I have only one suit of mourning
as yet."
"And you sent away Selina. You wanted money, I suppose?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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