Before eleven, she half repented this resolution, but her maid kept her to it; and at half past twelve next day they reached Mr. Rolfe's door; an old-fashioned, mean-looking house, in one of the briskest thoroughfares of the metropolis; a cabstand opposite to the door, and a tide of omnibuses passing it.
Lady Bassett viewed the place discontentedly, and said to herself, “What a poky little place for a writer to live in; how noisy, how unpoetical!”
They knocked at the door. It was opened by a maid-servant.
“Yes, ma'am. Please give me your card, and write the business.”
Lady Bassett took out her card and wrote a line or two on the back of it. The maid glanced at it, and showed her into a room, while she took the card to her master.
The room was rather long, low, and nondescript; scarlet flock paper; curtains and sofas green Utrecht velvet; woodwork and pillars white and gold; two windows looking on the street; at the other end folding-doors with scarcely any wood-work, all plate-glass, but partly hidden by heavy curtains of the same color and material as the others. Accustomed to large, lofty rooms, Lady Bassett felt herself in a long box here; but the colors pleased her. She said to Mary Wells, “What a funny, cozy little place for a gentleman to live in!”
Mr. Rolfe was engaged with some one, and she was kept waiting; this was quite new to her, and discouraged her, already intimidated by the novelty of the situation.
She tried to encourage herself by saying it was for her husband she did this unusual thing; but she felt very miserable and inclined to cry.
At last a bell rang; the maid came in and invited Lady Bassett to follow her. She opened the glass folding-doors, and took them into a small conservatory, walled like a grotto, with ferns sprouting out of rocky fissures, and spars sparkling, water dripping. Then she opened two more glass folding-doors, and ushered them into an empty room, the like of which Lady Bassett had never seen; it was large in itself, and multiplied tenfold by great mirrors from floor to ceiling, with no frames but a narrow oak beading; opposite her, on entering, was a bay-window all plate-glass, the central panes of which opened, like doors, upon a pretty little garden that glowed with color, and was backed by fine trees belonging to the nation; for this garden ran up to the wall of Hyde Park.