As I explained this and some other characteristics of rugs, I was more or less talking against time. The suspicion that had seized me on entering the house began to deepen, without my knowing why.
"Y-yes; y-yes," the little lady agreed; "it _is_ lovely, isn’t it? And I suppose that if you’re buying a good thing it’s better to get the—"
She paused, looking out through the great doorway into the hall. I, too, looked out, to see Mrs. Averill in a tea-gown, gazing in at us distraitly.
"Oh, Lulu, do come here. This man, this gentleman, has just been telling me the most interesting things—"
She trailed into the music-room with the same graceful languor with which she had trailed into the drawing-room on the occasion when we had last met. The two other porters and myself being negligible figures in the room, her almond eyes rested listlessly on the rugs, which she studied without remark.
"Lulu," Mrs. Mountney began again, with animation, "did you know that in Persian rugs the designs are outlined in rows of knots, and in Chinese by clipping with the scissors? _ciselé_, this ma—this gentleman calls it, and you can feel a little line! Do put your hand down."
"Oh, I’m too tired," Mrs. Averill protested, in her sweet drawling voice, "and this room’s so stuffy. Mildred said she’d have it aired; but I don’t know what she’s mooning over half her time. She’s so dreamy. I often think she ought to be in a convent, or something like that."
The little bit of fluff was more interested in rugs than in Mildred.
"Do tell Mrs. Averill—I’m staying with her—what you’ve just been saying about the wool. Did you know, Lulu, that Indian wool is hard and Chinese soft?" She looked again toward the hallway, where a second figure had come into view. "Mildred, do come here. There’s the most interesting things—I’m so glad I went to that place this morning—and they’ve sent me the most interesting man—Lulu’s like ice, but you’re artistic."
Miss Averill, too, advanced into the room; but though I was in full view she paid me and my comrades no particular attention. It was the easier for me not to speak, or to draw any one’s glance to myself, for the reason that Mrs. Mountney chattered on, repeating for Mildred’s benefit the facts I had just been giving her.