‘Disastrous, in fact,’ I agreed.

She raised her voice to its normal pitch again, as I had done. ‘No

doubt it will pass,’ she said, ‘now that you have come. Of course,

it’s chiefly my imagination.’ Her tone was lighter, though nothing

could convince me that the matter itself was light—just then. ‘And in

any case,’

tightening her grip on my arm as we passed into the bright enormous

corridor and caught sight of Mrs. Franklyn waiting in the cheerless

hall below, ‘I’m very glad you’re here, Bill, and Mabel, I know, is

too.’

‘If it doesn’t pass,’ I just had time to whisper with a feeble

attempt at jollity, ‘I’ll come at night and snore outside your door.

After that you’ll be so glad to get rid of me that you won’t mind

being alone.’

‘That’s a bargain,’ said Frances.

I shook my hostess by the hand, made a banal remark about the long

interval since last we met, and walked behind them into the great

dining-room, dimly lit by candles, wondering in my heart how long my

sister and I should stay, and why in the world we had ever left our

cosy little flat to enter this desolation of riches and false luxury

at all. The unsightly picture of the late Samuel Franklyn, Esq.,

stared down upon me from the farther end of the room above the mighty

mantelpiece.

He looked, I thought, like some pompous Heavenly Butler who denied

to all the world, and to us in particular, the right of entry without

presentation cards signed by his hand as proof that we belonged to his

own exclusive set. The majority, to his deep grief, and in spite of all

his.prayers on their behalf, must burn and ‘perish everlastingly.’

IV

With the instinct of the healthy bachelor I always try to make myself

a nest in the place I live in, be it for long or short. Whether

visiting, in lodging-house, or in hotel, the first essential is this

nest—one’s own things built into the walls as a bird builds in its

feathers. It may look desolate and uncomfortable enough to others,

because the central detail is neither bed nor wardrobe, sofa nor

armchair, but a good solid writing-table that does not wriggle, and

that has wide elbow-room.

And The Towers is vividly described for me by the single fact that

I could not ‘nest’ there.

I took several days to discover this, but the first impression of

impermanence was truer than I knew. The feathers of the mind refused

here to lie one way. They ruffled, pointed and grew wild.

Luxurious furniture does not mean comfort; I might as well have

tried to settle down in the sofa and armchair department of a big

shop. My bedroom was easily managed; it was the private workroom,

prepared especially for my reception, that made me feel alien and

outcast.

Externally, it was all one could desire: an antechamber to the

great library, with not one, but two generous oak tables, to say

nothing of smaller ones against the walls with capacious drawers.

There were reading-desks, mechanical devices for holding books,

perfect light, quiet as in a church, and no approach but across the

huge adjoining room. Yet it did not invite.

‘I hope you’ll be able to work here,’ said my little hostess the

next morning, as she took me in—her only visit to it while I stayed

in the house—and showed me the ten-volume Catalogue.

‘It’s absolutely quiet and no one will disturb you.’

‘If you can’t, Bill, you’re not much good,’ laughed Frances, who

was on her arm. ‘Even I could write in a study like this!’

I glanced with pleasure at the ample tables, the sheets of thick

blotting-paper, the rulers, sealing-wax, paper-knives, and all the

other immaculate paraphernalia. ‘It’s perfect,’ I answered with a

secret thrill, yet feeling a little foolish. This was for Gibbon or

Carlyle, rather than for my pot-boiling insignificancies. ‘If I can’t

write masterpieces here, it’s certainly not your fault,’ and I turned

with gratitude to Mrs. Franklyn. She was looking straight at me, and

there was a question in her small pale eyes I did not understand.