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The pervading aroma of alcohol had left it; airiness and a certain formal tidiness now reigned in place of stuffiness and neglect; but the room was perhaps more depressing than before to a sensitive mind. The sofa was in the same place; the basket, which had held the things she liked to have at hand, still stood beside it.
But, by straining his gaze, he could just make out the shapes of a crate or two and several packing boxes close to the wall. The central space was clear. In spite of the stuffiness. there was a damp chill to the gloomy place, by contrast to the vivid sunlight and the sweep of the trade-winds. outside. Gavin stretched himself out at full length on the long box, and prepared to take a nap.
"It's the perfume that prevents us from noticing the stuffiness of the room. But, Robin, tell me what is the nonsense of now?" "Religious, political, theatrical, divorce court or what, Lady Holme?"
I had a thousand times rather have had one of the outside cars, but I knew she would not hear of it unless she was with me, so I resigned myself to the stuffiness and rattling of a Dublin cab.
She recalled vividly that far-away time when she used to be called Anyutka, when she was a little girl and used to lie under the same quilt with her mother, while a washerwoman who lodged with them used to wash clothes in the next room; while through the thin walls there came from the neighbouring flats sounds of laughter, swearing, children's crying, the accordion, and the whirr of carpenters' lathes and sewing-machines; while her father, Akim Ivanovitch, who was clever at almost every craft, would be soldering something near the stove, or drawing or planing, taking no notice whatever of the noise and stuffiness.
With so much to tell of what befell me later, I have neither the time nor the inclination to detail the pleasures and the discomforts of a twelve days' trip by slow steamer across a storm-swept Atlantic, battened down for days on end, like cattle in the hold of a cross-channel tramp; of a six days' journey across prairie lands, in a railway car with its dreadful monotony of unupholstered wooden seats and sleeping boards, its stuffiness, its hourly disturbances in the night-time in the shape of noisy conductors demanding tickets, incoming and outgoing travellers and shrieking engines; its dollar meals in the dining car, which I envied but could not afford; its well-nigh unlightable cooking stoves and the canned beef and pork and beans with which I had to regale myself en route.
The excess of brilliancy which must not stream from the windows had been boarded in, and a tarpaulin was drawn over the skylight, in case the gunners of Meisje should be tempted to rouse the monster from her Sabbath quiet, and send in a ninety-four-pound shell to break up an orgy of godless Englanders. But the stuffiness made it all the snugger.
However, nobody cared for stuffiness, certainly not the three young ladies, who, fan in hand, came tripping down the steps that were unrolled for them. The eldest paused to administer a fee to their entertainer's servants who had brought them home, and the coach rolled on to dispose of the remainder of the freight.
Madame must have lamented the stuffiness of London during the bright days of early June, and painted, in her enthusiastic French fashion, a picture of southern England and the glittering Channel. "Ma foi, mon ami, what would I not give for one hour of peace and rest, away from this swarming hive of men and women?
These deep verandahs are very pleasant, for they render window-blinds unnecessary; so there is nothing of that dark stuffiness which makes indoor life a trial in the closed, shadeless Australian houses. Miss Karpe, my travelling companion, is a lady of great energy, and apparently an adept in the art of travelling.
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