interpreting it differently. Vague it was, as the coming of rain or
storm that announce themselves hours in advance with their hint of
faint, unsettling excitement in the air. I had been but a short hour in
the house--big, comfortable, luxurious house--but had experienced this
sense of being unsettled, unfixed, fluctuating--a kind of impermanence
that transient lodgers in hotels must feel, but that a guest in a
friend's home ought not to feel, be the visit short or long. To Frances,
an impressionable woman, the feeling had come in the terms of alarm. She
disliked sleeping alone, while yet she longed to sleep. The precise idea
in my mind evaded capture, merely brushing through me, three-quarters
out of sight; I realized only that we both felt the same thing, and that
neither of us could get at it clearly.

Degrees of unrest we felt, but the actual thing did not disclose itself.
It did not happen.

I felt strangely at sea for a moment. Frances would interpret hesitation
as endorsement, and encouragement might be the last thing that could
help her.

"Sleeping in a strange house," I answered at length, "is often difficult
at first, and one feels lonely. After fifteen months in our tiny flat
one feels lost and uncared-for in a big house. It's an uncomfortable
feeling--I know it well. And this is a barrack, isn't it? The masses of
furniture only make it worse. One feels in storage somewhere
underground--the furniture doesn't furnish. One must never yield to
fancies, though--"

Frances looked away towards the windows; she seemed disappointed a
little.