I have said it was my uncles , occasionally to invite ied gentlemen to the house, to take a supper with us and, later, hear me read. He does so now.
Make yourself onight, Maud, he says to me, as I stand in his library buttoning up my gloves. We shall have guests. Hawtrey, Huss, and another fellow, a stranger. I hope to employ him with the mounting of our pictures.
Our pictures. There are ets, in a separate study, filled with drawers of lewd engravings, that my uncle has collected in a desultory sort of manner, along with his books. He has often spoken of taking on some man to trim and mount them, but has never found a man to match the task. One needs a quite particular character, for work of that sort.
He catches my eye, thrusts out his lips. Hawtrey claims to have a gift for us, besides. Aion of a text we have not catalogued.
That is great news, sir.
Perhaps I speak drily; but my uhough a dry man himself, does not mark it. He only puts his hand to the slips of paper before him and divides the heap into two uneven piles. So, so. Let me see . . .
May I leave you, Uncle?
He looks up. Has the hour struck?
It has, I believe.
He draws out from his pocket his chiming watd holds it to his ear. The key to his library door—sewn about, at the stem, with faded velvet—swings noiselessly beside it. He says, Go on then, go on. Leave an old man to his books. Go and play, but—gently, Maud.
Yes, Uncle.
Now and then I wonder how he supposes I spend my hours, when not engaged by him. I think he is too used to the particular world of his books, where time passes strangely, or not at all, and imagines me an ageless child. Sometimes that is how I imagine myself—as if my short, tight gowns a sashes keep me bound, like a ese slipper, to a form I should otherwise outleap. My uncle himself—who is at this time, I suppose, not quite above fifty—I have always sidered to have been perfectly and permaly aged; as flies remain aged, yet fixed and unging, in cloudy chips of amber.
I leave him squinting at a page of text. I walk very quietly, in soft-soled shoes. I go to my rooms, where Agnes is.
I fi work at a piece of sewing. She sees me e, and flinches. Do you know how provoking such a flinch will seem, to a temperament like mine? I stand and watch her sew. She feels my gaze, and begins to shake. Her stitches grow long and crooked. At last I take the needle from her hand aly put the point of it against her flesh; then draw it off; then put it back; then do this, six or seven times more, until her knuckles are marked between the freckles with a rash of needle-pricks.
There are to be gentlemeonight, I say, as I do it. One a stranger. Do you suppose he will be young, and handsome?
I say it—idly enough—as a way of teasing. It is nothing to me. But she hears me, and colours.
I t say, miss, she answers, blinking and turning her head; not drawing her hand away, however. Perhaps.
You think so?
Who knows? He might be.
I study her harder, struck with a new idea.
Should you like it if he was?
Like it, miss?
Like it, Agnes. It seems to me now, that you would. Shall I tell him the way to your room? I shant listen at the door. I shall turn the key, you will be quite private.
Oh, miss, what nonsense!
Is it? Here, turn your hand. She does, and I jab the needle harder. Now, say you dont like it, having a prick upon your palm!
She ta