The stillness of the house seemed to have accentuated itself when he returned to it. His sense of it let him down a little as he entered. The library was like a tomb--a comfortable luxurious tomb with a bright fire in it. A new Punch and the morning papers had been laid upon a table earlier in the day, and he sat down to look at them.
“I guess about fifty-seven or eight of the hundred and thirty-six hours have gone by,” he said. “But, gee! ain't it lonesome!”
He sat so still trying to interest himself in “London Day by Day” in the morning paper that the combination of his exercise in the fresh air and the warmth of the fire made him drowsy. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes without being aware that he did so. He was on the verge of a doze.
He remained upon the verge for a few minutes, and then a soft, rustling sound made him open his eyes.
An elderly little lady had timidly entered the room. She was neatly dressed in an old-fashioned and far-from-new black silk dress, with a darned lace collar and miniature brooch at her neck. She had also thin, gray side-ringlets dangling against her cheeks from beneath a small, black lace cap with pale-purple ribbons on it. She had most evidently not expected to find any one in the room, and, having seen Tembarom, gave a half-frightened cough.
“I--I beg your pardon,” she faltered. “I really did not mean to intrude--really.”
Tembarom jumped up, awkward, but good-natured. Was she a kind of servant who was a lady?
But she evidently did not feel that it was all right. She looked as though she felt that she had been caught doing something wrong, and must properly propitiate by apology.
“I'm so sorry. I thought you had gone out--Mr. Temple Barholm.”
“I did go out--to take a walk; but I came in.”
Having been discovered in her overt act, she evidently felt that duty demanded some further ceremony from her. She approached him very timidly, but with an exquisite, little elderly early-Victorian manner. She was of the most astonishingly perfect type, though Tembarom was not aware of the fact. The manner, a century earlier, would have expressed itself in a curtsy.
“It is Mr. Temple Barholm, isn't it?” she inquired.
“Yes; it has been for the last few weeks,” he answered, wondering why she seemed so in awe of him and wishing she didn't.