Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/18

 melancholy as a result—so little external pressure is required to sway a mood—that no fire had been laid. He was also cognizant for the first time, although he had been occupying the room for halfan-hour, that he felt chilled. Lifting the pleated taffeta hanging from the seat under the windows, he stroked the pipes of the radiator. He touched cold metal, metal algid as ice! What could these passive signs portend? He could not recollect that this particular phenomenon had ever previously attracted his attention. His spirits rose as he pressed a button set in the wall.

He questioned the parlour-maid.

Mrs. Moody said that a fire in the drawing-room would be enough. I did not know that you had come in, sir.

But I never sit in the drawing-room before dinner.

She did not seek an alternative, explanatory phrase. I did not know that you had come in, sir, she repeated.

Well, light one now.

Very good, sir.

Choosing a journal from the loose heap of periodicals on the table, once more he settled himself in a renewed effort to read. To his disgust he discovered that he had selected a literary review. He examined the pile again, this time more carefully, but with no better success. It appeared that all the magazines were literary reviews—presumably