I saw her frowning at that mark, then, until the meal was finished. When Margaret came to take the tray away, she rose and went into her bedroom; and when she came back her gloves were white again—she had been to her drawer and got a new pair. The old ones I found later, as I put coal on her bedroom fire: she had cast them there, at the back of the grate, and the flames had made the kid shrink, they looked like gloves for a doll.
She was certainly, then, what you would call original. But was she mad, or even half-way simple, as Gentleman said at Lant Street? I did not think so, then. I thought her only pretty lonely, and pretty bookish and bored—as who wouldn''t be, in a house like that? When we had finished our lunch she went to the window: the sky was grey and threatening rain, but she said she had a fancy to go out walking. She said, ''Now, what shall I wear for it?'', and we stood at the door of her little black press, looking over her coats, her bonnets and her boots. That killed nearly an hour. I think that''s why she did it. When I was clumsy over the lacing of her shoe, she put her hands upon mine and said,
''Be slower. Why should we hurry? There is no-one to hurry for, is there?''
She smiled, but her eyes were sad. I said, ''No, miss.''
In the end she put on a pale grey cloak, and over her gloves she drew mi