"
"Luxury!" growled Melrose, "useless luxury and expense! that's what every
one's after nowadays. A man must be as _cossu_ as a pea in a pod! I'll go
and speak to him myself!"
And catching up round him the sort of Tennysonian cloak he habitually
wore, even in the house and on a summer day, Melrose moved imperiously
toward the door.
Undershaw stood in his way.
"Mr. Faversham is really not fit yet to discuss his own plans, except
with his doctor, Mr. Melrose. It would be both wise and kind of you to
leave the decision of the matter to myself."
Melrose stared at him.
"Come along here!" he said, roughly. Opening the door of the library, he
turned down the broad corridor to the right. Undershaw followed
unwillingly. He was due at a consultation at Keswick, and had no time to
waste with this old madman.
Melrose, still grumbling to himself, took a bunch of keys out of his
pocket, and fitted one to the last door in the passage. It opened with
difficulty. Undershaw saw dimly a large room, into which the light of a
rainy June day penetrated through a few chinks in the barred shutters.
Melrose went to the windows, and with a physical strength which amazed
his companion unshuttered and opened them all, helped by Undershaw. One
of them was a glass door leading down by steps to the garden outside.
Melrose dragged the heavy iron shutter which closed it open, and then,
panting, looked round at his companion.
"Will this do for you?"
"Wonderful!" said Undershaw heartily, staring in amazement at the lovely
tracery which incrusted the ceiling, at the carving of the doors, at the
stately mantelpiece, with its marble caryatides, and at the Chinese
wall-paper which covered the walls, its mandarins and pagodas, and its
branching trees.
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