I
They stood at the window of her boudoir in the new house which Stephen
Cheswardine had recently bought at Sneyd. The stars were pursuing their
orbits overhead in a clear dark velvet sky, except to the north, where
the industrial fires and smoke of the Five Towns had completely put them
out. But even these distant signs of rude labour had a romantic aspect,
and did not impair the general romance of the scene. Charlie had loved
her; he loved her still; and she gave him odd minutes of herself when
she could, just to keep him alive. Moreover, there was the log fire
richly crackling in the well-grate of the boudoir; there was the
feminineness of the boudoir (dimly lit), and the soft splendour of her
gown, and behind all that, pervading the house, the gay rumour of the
party. And in front of them the window-panes, and beyond the
window-panes the stars in their orbits. Doubtless it was such influences
which, despite several degrees of frost outside, gave to Charlie
Woodruff's thoughts an Italian, or Spanish, turn. He said:
"Stephen ought to have this window turned into a French window, and
build you a balcony. It could easily be done. Just the view for a
balcony. You can see Sneyd Lake from here." (You could. People were
skating on it.)
He did not add that you could see the Sneyd Golf Links from there, and
_vice versa_. I doubt if the idea occurred to him, but as he was an
active member of the Sneyd Golf Club it would certainly have presented
itself to him in due season.
"What a lovely scheme!" Vera exclaimed enthusiastically.
It appealed to her. It appealed to all that was romantic in her
bird-like soul. She did not see the links; she did not see the lake; she
just saw herself in exquisite frocks, lightly lounging on the balcony in
high summer, and dreaming of her own beauty.
"And have a striped awning," she said.
"Yes," he said. "Make Stephen do it."
"I will," she said.
At that moment Stephen came in, with his bald head and his forty years.
"I say!" he demanded. "What are you up to?"
"We were just watching the skaters," said Vera.
"And the wonders of the night," said Charlie, chuckling
characteristically. He always laughed at himself. He was a philosopher.
He and Stephen had been fast friends from infancy.
"Well, you'd just better skate downstairs," said Stephen. (No romance in
Stephen! He was netting a couple of thousand a year out of the
manufacture of toilet-sets, in all that smoke to the north. How could
you expect him to be romantic?)
"Charlie was saying how nice it would be for me to have a French window
here, and a marble balcony," Vera remarked. It had not taken her long to
think of marble. "You must do it for me, Steve."
"Bosh!" said Stephen. "That's just like you, Charlie. What an ass you
are!"
"Oh, but you _must_!" said Vera, in that tone which meant business, and
which also meant trouble for Stephen.
"_She's_ come," Stephen announced curtly, determined to put trouble off.
"Oh, has she?" cried Vera. "I thought you said she wouldn't."
"She hesitated, because she was afraid. But she's come after all,"
Stephen answered.
"What fun!" Vera murmured.
And ran off downstairs back again into the midst of the black coats and
the white toilettes and the holly-clad electricity of her Christmas
gathering.