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It would have been easy, so the simple and obviously-minded person would think, for her to have turned on the electric light, and have saved her eyes. But there were subtler and more compelling reasons which stood in the way of doing that. The first was that the light would almost certainly awaken her mother, who, by beginning to talk again, as she always did when a nap had refreshed her, would put an end to Alice¡¯s private reflections which flourished best in dusk and in silence. A second reason was that it was more than likely that Mr Silverdale would presently drop in for tea, and it was decidedly more interesting to be found sitting at work, with her profile outlined against the smouldering glow of sunset, than to be sitting under the less becoming glare of{99} an electric lamp. For the same reason she did not put on the spectacles which she would otherwise have worn.¡®May me come in?¡¯ he said. ¡®And how are us?{200}¡¯She paused in her work but did not look at him.

¡®I wonder if you would do a book-plate for me, Miss Propert,¡¯ he said. ¡®I should like to have a book-plate for my library.¡¯

The remembrance of this odious suggestion was the only thing that seemed to cloud the serenity of Mrs Keeling¡¯s horizon: indeed it scarcely did that, and corresponded rather to a very slight fall in the barometer, though no signs of untoward weather were anywhere visible. She did not often think of it, but she knew that it had not (like so many more important things) entirely vanished from her mind, and when she did think of it, it produced this slight declension from weather otherwise set fair. But immediately afterwards her thistle-down reflections would flutter away to the pearl-pendant, the Inverbroom visit, and the baronetage.

¡®Pray sit down, Miss Propert,¡¯ she said. ¡®I fancy your brother is one of Mr Keeling¡¯s clerks too.¡¯¡®Well, we will let it pass. Was it not odd that Lord Inverbroom had a book-plate by your Miss Propert? Quite a coincidence! But you made me feel quite hot when you talked about supplying him with a chimney-cowl, just as if he was a customer. Not that it really matters, and I thought you got on wonderfully well, though no doubt you felt a little strange at first. And what did you and Lord Inverbroom talk about when we left you? Books, I suppose.¡¯

¡®I suppose so.¡¯¡®She said something about the British Museum Library that I did not understand,¡¯ she said.

Alice wished that Julia Fyson could hear him say that. (Julia Fyson probably would have if she had had the influenza too, but that{201} benumbing possibility did not enter Alice¡¯s head.) He had called her Helper before, but the oftener he called her that the better.

¡®I¡¯m sure it¡¯s years since I¡¯ve been so upset as I¡¯ve been to-day, Thomas,¡¯ she said, ¡®for what with you and Mamma worrying each other so at lunch, and Mamma stopping all afternoon and biting my head off, if I said as much as to hope that her rheumatism hadn¡¯t troubled her lately, and it¡¯s wonderful how little it does trouble her really, for I¡¯m sure that though I don¡¯t complain, I suffer twice as much as she does when we get that damp November weather¡ªDear me, this tea-pot was always a bad pourer: I should have been wiser to get a less handsome one with a straight spout. Well, there¡¯s your cup of tea, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be glad of it. But there are some days when everything combines to vex one, and it will all be in a piece with what has gone before, if Alice forgets and takes some salmon-mayonnaise,{49} and Mr Silverdale goes away thinking that I¡¯m a stingy housekeeper, which has never been said of me yet.¡¯

Charles was no better next day, but merely obstinate, and went up to his work, as usual, with his sister. Keeling appeared shortly after, and, as usual, began the dictation. Now and then he gave sharp glances at Norah, and before long stopped in the middle of a letter.

¡®Very likely, my dear,¡¯ said her mother, ¡®though it¡¯s poor work entailing your pictures if you haven¡¯t got anybody to leave them to. Indeed, I don¡¯t see how they could be entailed unless you had somebody nearer than a second cousin to entail them for. I shouldn¡¯t think the law would allow that for so distant a relation, though I¡¯m sure I don¡¯t know. Bless me, you¡¯ve put on your new red dress. Whatever have you done that for? Just to sit quietly before the fire at home?¡¯She had come back in the afternoon without her parcel, and his imagination pictured her{126} telling her brother all that had happened. He felt he must have cut a sorry figure. ¡®That¡¯s the end of his books and his book-plates for me,¡¯ would be the sort of way Norah would sum it all up. Probably they did not discuss it much: there really was very little need for comment on what he had done. The simple facts were sufficient: perhaps she had smiled again as she smiled when she rejected his first overtures.

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