‘Bother the woman!’ she thought.  ’I do want that gentian dress got ready, but now I simply can’t give it to her to do.’

CHAPTER VIII

THE SINGLE MIND OF MR. STONE

Since in the flutter of her spirit caused by the words of Mrs. Hughs, Cecilia felt she must do something, she decided to change her dress.

The furniture of the pretty room she shared with Stephen had not been hastily assembled.  Conscious, even fifteen years ago, when they moved into this house, of the grave Philistinism of the upper classes, she and Stephen had ever kept their duty to aestheticism green; and, in the matter of their bed, had lain for two years on two little white affairs, comfortable, but purely temporary, that they might give themselves a chance.  The chance had come at last—­a bed in real keeping with the period they had settled on, and going for twelve pounds.  They had not let it go, and now slept in it—­not quite so comfortable, perhaps, but comfortable enough, and conscious of duty done.

For fifteen years Cecilia had been furnishing her house; the process approached completion.  The only things remaining on her mind—­apart, that is, from Thyme’s development and the condition of the people—­were:  item, a copper lantern that would allow some light to pass its framework; item, an old oak washstand not going back to Cromwell’s time.  And now this third anxiety had come!

She was rather touching, as she stood before the wardrobe glass divested of her bodice, with dimples of exertion in her thin white arms while she hooked her skirt behind, and her greenish eyes troubled, so anxious to do their best for everyone, and save risk of any sort.  Having put on a bramble-coloured frock, which laced across her breast with silver lattice-work, and a hat (without feathers, so as to encourage birds) fastened to her head with pins (bought to aid a novel school of metal-work), she went to see what sort of day it was.

The window looked out at the back over some dreary streets, where the wind was flinging light drifts of smoke athwart the sunlight.  They had chosen this room, not indeed for its view over the condition of the people, but because of the sky effects at sunset, which were extremely fine.  For the first time, perhaps, Cecilia was conscious that a sample of the class she was so interested in was exposed to view beneath her nose.  ‘The Hughs live somewhere there,’ she thought.  ’After all I think B. ought to know about that man.  She might speak to father, and get him to give up having the girl to copy for him—­the whole thing’s so worrying.’