There could hardly be more noise. The idea may refresh you. You look
so tired."
He seated himself in the comfortable wicker chair by the table and
looked about him with a faint smile of content.
"Yes," he said, "it is homely, isn't it? The red light, and the pretty
little room, and you sitting there working. It might be a corner of
the old country--or of Marut. Your study was just like this, I
remember."
"Yes, I copied it. It made me feel less lonely. Only I flatter myself
that it is tidier here than it used to be in the old days."
He laughed, and the laughter sent the light shining in his eyes.
"Rather! When I first joined I had the chemical craze on, do you
remember? I thought I was going to discover some wonderful new
gunpowder, and we used to experiment together in your room. The
business came to an untimely end when I blew off part of the
ceiling--"
"And some of my eyebrows!" she interposed merrily.
"Yes, of course. I don't know which disaster upset Mrs. Carmichael
most, good soul. After that I forget what craze came about, but we
always had a new one on the list, hadn't we?"
She nodded, her head once more bent over her work.
"None of them lasted," she said. "Crazes never do."
There was a moment's silence. Their little burst of gay recollections
was over, and the restraint had regained its old ascendancy over them.
Unknown to her, Nicholson was watching his companion with keen,
anxious eyes.
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