Chapter 46 - Page 2

and began to roam
through the house.

He went to all the rooms in turn: his mother's first, the wonderful lacy
bedroom, all pale silks and velvets, artful mirrors and veiled lamps,
and the boudoir as big as a drawing-room, with pictures he would have
liked to know about, and tables and cabinets holding things he was
afraid to touch. Mr. Moffatt's rooms came next. They were soberer and
darker, but as big and splendid; and in the bedroom, on the brown wall,
hung a single picture--the portrait of a boy in grey velvet--that
interested Paul most of all. The boy's hand rested on the head of a big
dog, and he looked infinitely noble and charming, and yet (in spite of
the dog) so sad and lonely that he too might have come home that very
day to a strange house in which none of his old things could be found.

From these rooms Paul wandered downstairs again. The library attracted
him most: there were rows and rows of books, bound in dim browns and
golds, and old faded reds as rich as velvet: they all looked as if they
might have had stories in them as splendid as their bindings. But the
bookcases were closed with gilt trellising, and when Paul reached up
to open one, a servant told him that Mr. Moffatt's secretary kept them
locked because the books were too valuable to be taken down. This seemed
to make the library as strange as the rest of the house, and he passed
on to the ballroom at the back. Through its closed doors he heard a
sound of hammering, and when he tried the door-handle a servant passing
with a tray-full of glasses told him that "they" hadn't finished, and
wouldn't let anybody in.

The mysterious pronoun somehow increased Paul's sense of isolation, and
he went on to the drawing-rooms, steering his way prudently between the
gold arm-chairs and shining tables, and wondering whether the wigged and
corseleted heroes on the walls represented Mr. Moffatt's ancestors, and
why, if they did, he looked so little like them. The dining-room beyond
was more amusing, because busy servants were already laying the long
table. It was too early for the florist, and the centre of the table was
empty, but down the sides were gold baskets heaped with pulpy summer
fruits-figs, strawberries and big blushing nectarines. Between them
stood crystal decanters with red and yellow wine, and little dishes full
of sweets; and against the walls were sideboards with great pieces
of gold and silver, ewers and urns and branching candelabra, which
sprinkled the green marble walls with starlike reflections.

After a while he grew tired of watching the coming and going of
white-sleeved footmen, and of listening to the butler's vociferated
orders, and strayed back into the library. The habit of solitude had
given