His
whole face and all its features smiled.
He was smiling at Alice now, as if struck all of a sudden by her
smallness.
"I've come to ask a favor, Mr. Greatorex," said Alice.
"Ay," said Greatorex. He said it as if ladies called every day to ask
him favors. "Will you coom in, Miss Cartaret?" It was the mournful
and musical voice that she had heard sometimes last summer on the road
outside the back door of the Vicarage.
She came in, pausing on the threshold and looking about her, as if
she stood poised on the edge of an adventure. Her smallness, and the
delicious, exploring air of her melted Jim's heart and made him smile
at her.
"It's a roough plaace fer a laady," he said.
"It's a beautiful place, Mr. Greatorex," said Alice.
And she did actually think it was beautiful with its stone floor, its
white-washed walls, its black oak dresser and chest and settle;
not because of these things but because it was on the border of her
Paradise. Rowcliffe had sent her there. Jim Greatorex had glamour
for her, less on his own account than as a man in whom Rowcliffe was
interested.
"You'd think it a bit loansoom, wouldn' yo', ef yo' staayed in it
yeear in and yeear out?"
"I don't know," said Alice doubtfully. "Perhaps--a little," she
ventured, encouraged by Greatorex's indulgent smile.
"An' loansoom it is," said Greatorex dismally.
Alice explored, penetrating into the interior.
"Oh--but aren't you glad you've got such a lovely fireplace?"
"I doan' knaw as I've thought mooch about it.
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