One felt that there were flowers in the
rooms, and that tea was in course of preparation.
The door on the left-hand side of the hall was opened, and a small
woman appeared there. She was essentially small--a little upright
figure with bright brown hair, a good complexion, and gay, sparkling
eyes.
"I have brought Mr. Cornish," explained Roden. "We are frozen, and want
some tea."
Dorothy Roden came forward and shook hands with Cornish. She looked up
at him, taking him all in, in one quick intuitive glance, from his
smooth head to his neat boots.
"It is horribly cold," she said. One cannot always be original and
sparkling, and it is wiser not to try too persistently. She turned and
re-entered the drawing-room, with Cornish following her. The room
itself was prettily furnished in the Dutch fashion, and there were
flowers. Dorothy Roden's manner was that of a woman; no longer in her
first girlhood, who had seen en and cities. She was better educated
than her brother; she was probably cleverer. She had, at all events,
the subtle air of self-restraint that marks those women whose lives are
passed in the society of a man mentally inferior to themselves. Of
course all women are in a sense doomed to this--according to their own
thinking.
"Percy said that he would probably bring you in to tea," said Miss
Roden, "and that probably you would be tired out."
"Thanks; I am not tired.
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