The furnishing of the chamber of the love knots was arranged for, decorously, between Mrs. Ransome and the foreman. Over every item, from the wardrobe in honey-colored maple picked out with black, to the china "set" with crimson reeds and warblers on it, Ranny's friend, the foreman, communed with Ranny's mother in an intimate aside; and Ranny's mother, in another aside of even more accentuated propriety, appealed to flaming cheeks and lowered eyelids and a mouth that gave an almost inarticulate assent. The eyelids refused to open on Ranny where he stood, turning his back on the women, while he shook dubiously the footrail of the iron double bedstead to test the joints; and the mouth refused to speak when Ranny was heard complaining that the bedstead was about three sizes too large for the room. Eyes and mouth recovered only downstairs among the carpets, where they again asserted themselves by insisting on a Kidderminster with a slender pattern of blue on a drab ground; though Ranny's mother had advised the black and crimson. Ranny's mother contended almost with passion that drab showed every stain. But Violet would have that carpet and no other. And when by struggles and by prodigies of strength on Ranny's part, and on the part of Woolridge's men, by every kind of physical persuasion, and by coaxing, by strategy and guile, all that furniture from seven distinct departments was at last squeezed into Granville--well, there was hardly room to turn round. Granville, that would have held its own under any treatment less severe, was overpowered by Woolridge's. * * * * * "What's wrong with it?" said poor Ranny, as they stood together one Saturday evening and surveyed their front sitting-room. He couldn't see anything wrong with it himself. They had been married that morning. Ranny had had to bring his bride straight from her father's house to Granville. There could be no going away for the honeymoon. Woolridge's wouldn't let Ranny go till the sales were over. It was only a minute ago that he had had his arm round Violet's waist, and that her face had pressed his. It seemed ages. And suddenly Violet had shown sulkiness and irritation. He couldn't understand it. He couldn't understand how she could have chosen their first hour of solitude for finding fault with the arrangement of the room. He himself had been distinctly pleased; proud, too, of having furnished throughout from Woolridge's, in a style that would last, and at a double discount which he owed to his payment in ready money, and to his connection with the firm. Now he faced a young woman who had no understanding of his pride and no pity. "It's _all_ wrong," said she. "And I'll tell you for why. It's too heavy. You should have furnished in bamboo." "Bamboo? Sham-poo! It wouldn't last," said Ranny. "Who wants the silly things to last?" said Violet. "Come to that, you never let on it was bamboo you wanted."