I wish I had been able to conceal the fact that I had noticed that the
glasses were off--Another day I would certainly have taken advantage of
this moment and would have tried to make her confess the reason of her
wearing them; but some odd quality in me prevented me from reaping any
advantage from this situation, so I let the chance pass.--Perhaps she
was grateful to me, for she warmed up a little again.
I began to feel that I might write the fool of a book right over from
the beginning--and suggested to her that we should take it in detail.
She acquiesced--.
Then it suddenly struck me that she had not only spoken of style in
writing, of method in book making--but had shown an actual knowledge of
the subject of the furniture itself.--How could little Miss Sharp, a
poverty stricken typist, be familiar with William and Mary furniture?
She has obviously not "seen better days," and only taken up a
stenographic business lately, because such proficiency as she shows, not
only in this work but in account keeping and all the duties of a
secretary, must have required a steady professional training.
Could she have studied in Museums?
But the war has been on for four years and I had gathered that she has
been in Paris all that time--Even if she had left England in 1914, she
could only have been eighteen or nineteen then, and girls of that age do
not generally take an interest in furniture. This thought kept bothering
me--and I was silent for some moments. I was weighing things up.
Her voice interrupted my thoughts.
"The Braxted chair has the first of the knotted fringes known"--it was
saying.