The young girl, opening the front door, had said: "Do you want to see
father?" And instantly the words were out George had realized that she
might have said: "_Did_ you want to see father?" ... in the idiom of the
shop-girl or clerk, and that if she had said 'did' he would have been
gravely disappointed and hurt. But she had not. Of course she had not!
Of course she was incapable of such a locution, and it was silly of him
to have thought otherwise, even momentarily. She was an artist. Entirely
different from the blonde and fluffy Mrs. John Orgreave--(and a good
thing too, for Mrs. John with her eternal womanishness had got on his
nerves)--Miss Haim was without doubt just as much a lady, and probably a
jolly sight more cultured, in the true sense. Yet Miss Haim had not in
the least revealed herself to him in the hall as she indicated the
depository for his hat and stick and opened the door of the
sitting-room. She had barely smiled. Indeed she had not smiled. She had
not mentioned the weather. On the other hand, she had not been prim or
repellent. She had revealed nothing of herself. Her one feat had been to
stimulate mightily his curiosity and his imagination concerning
her--rampant enough even before he entered the house!

The house--what he saw of it--suited her and set her off, and, as she
was different from Mrs. John, so was the house different from the
polished, conventional abode of Mrs. John at Bedford Park. To George's
taste it knocked Bedford Park to smithereens. In the parlour, for
instance, an oak chest, an oak settee, an oak gate-table, one tapestried
easy chair, several rush-bottomed chairs, a very small brass fender, a
self-coloured wall-paper of warm green, two or three old engravings in
maple-wood or tarnished gilt frames, several small portraits in
maple-wood frames, brass candlesticks on the mantelpiece and no clock,
self-coloured brown curtains across the windows (two windows opposite
each other at either end of the long room), sundry rugs on the