Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/39

 The drawing-room in which Graham and Jill found themselves was unlike any room that they had ever seen before. It was so chill and pale and formal that it seemed as far from life as the cemetery had been; further, even, for the cemetery commemorated past life while this room seemed full only of the memory of a past where no life had ever been. Yet, long and spacious, the northern light shining in from four windows upon its polished floors, a frieze of pallid water-lilies running round its dim green walls, it had the charm of a perfect consistency. Two sofas, symmetrically placed, and a dozen stiff carved chairs were upholstered in grey satin sprigged with green and purple. On a round mahogany table, its one leg hideously carved, stood a stereopticon with its box of photographs, a casket of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a large gilt cage where a grey parrot, a bit of apple in his claw, paused from the act of eating to look at them with sideways head. There were accurately placed bookcases of carved ebony holding books bound in black and red, and round the walls hung a series of faintly tinted landscapes painted in water-colour and framed in gilt.

Graham looked about him, intently, while Jill's eyes turned to the battered bergère and small attendant table that stood near the fireplace. A dog-eared novel, a paper-knife, and a pair of spectacles lay on the table and beside them was a bowl of common kitchen-ware with a spoon in it. This had contained, Jill felt sure, the old lady's luncheon, and so human, so helpless, was