Part 2 (2/2)

He had been a little afraid the den business would be reopened by this intention, but Mabel's only reply was, ”You'd better have the maids help you.”

”Yes, I'll get them.”

”No, I'll give the order, if you don't mind.”

”Right!”

And in the afternoon the books were moved, the den raped of them, his bedroom awarded them. High Jinks and Low Jinks rather enjoyed it, pa.s.sing up and down the stairs with continuous smirks at this new manifestation of the master's ways. The bookshelves proved rather a business. There were four of them, narrow and high. ”We'll carry these longways,” Sabre directed, when the first one was tackled. ”I'll shove it over. You two take the top, and I'll carry the foot.”

In this order they struggled up the stairs, High Jinks and Low Jinks backwards, and the smirks enlarged into panting giggles. Halfway up came a loud crack.

”What the devil's that?” said Sabre, sweating and gasping.

”I think it's the back of my dress, sir,” said High Jinks.

”Good lord!” (Convulsive giggles.) ”You know, Low, you're practically sitting on the dashed thing. You've twisted yourself round in some extraordinary way--”

Agonising giggles.

Mabel appeared in the hail beneath. ”Raise it up, Rebecca. Raise it, Sarah. How can you expect to move, stooping like that?”

They raised it to the level of their waists, and progression became seemly.

”There you are!” said Sabre.

There was somehow a feeling at both ends of the bookcase of having been caught.

II

Sabre liked this room. Three latticed windows, in the same wall, looked on to the garden. In the s.p.a.ces between them, and in the two s.p.a.ces between the end windows and the end walls, he placed his bookshelves, a set of shelves in each s.p.a.ce.

Mabel displayed no interest in the move nor made any reference to it at teatime. In the evening, hearing her pa.s.s the door on her way to dress for dinner, he called her in.

He was in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, arranging the books. ”There you are! Not bad?”

She regarded them and the room. ”They look all right. All the same, I must say it seems rather funny using your bedroom for your things when you've got a room downstairs.”

”Oh, well, I never liked that room, you know. I hardly ever go into it.”

”I know you don't.”

And she went off.

III

But the significance of the removal rested not in the definite relinquishment of the den, but in her words ”using your bedroom”: the definite recognition of separate rooms.

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