"Do you know," she ventured, following him to the door, "I'm not half satisfied with what you did about Mr. St. Ives?" and she gave him a direct, almost accusing glance. "But I sent him a check, certainly liberal in the circumstances, since he is free to go on and manufacture--" Simon began, and he wrinkled his brow. Rachel shrugged her shoulders in impatience. "You sent him a check; yes, you even advised him to go on and manufacture that instrument. But he isn't capable of making a practical move. Now if you'd shown any real interest--" She stayed her words, silenced by contrition. After Simon had gone, she established herself with a bit of sewing in the dining room. It was the only room that did not weigh on her spirits. But she had discovered at once that this house, lonely, silent, forbidding, suited Simon as it was; therefore she had confined herself merely to refitting and converting into a sitting room an unused chamber on the second floor; and to making more comfortable the quarters of old Nicholas Hart. There her efforts had ended. An entire remodelling of the mansion would have been necessary to disperse the atmosphere of depression that, tangible as dampness, emanated from its walls. It had sheltered in its time, apparently, a goodly number of soft-moving, mirthless people. Its inner doors of dark polished wood, never emitted a squeak; and the occasional sounds that penetrated the plaster of its ceilings, suggested a company of rats that went about their business in hushed, apologetic groups, instead of in scampering hordes. The house had never become reconciled to Simon's pianola, and when he seated himself before the instrument, as he did with conscientious regularity every day after dinner, Rachel often fancied that the house lifted shoulders of aversion. And the legitimate inmates, she decided, were in keeping with the house. Simon and his housekeeper, Theresa Walker, could have desired nothing different in the way of a dwelling. As for old Nicholas and herself, not to mention the various maids who succeeded one another rapidly (for Theresa was difficult to suit in the matter of assistants) they were merely interlopers.