Bosinney was waiting for him at the door; and on his rugged,
good-looking, face was a queer, yearning, yet happy look, as though he
too saw a promise of bliss in the spring sky, sniffed a coming happiness
in the spring air. Soames looked at him waiting there. What was the
matter with the fellow that he looked so happy? What was he waiting for
with that smile on his lips and in his eyes? Soames could not see
that for which Bosinney was waiting as he stood there drinking in the
flower-scented wind. And once more he felt baffled in the presence of
this man whom by habit he despised. He hastened on to the house.
"The only colour for those tiles," he heard Bosinney say,--"is ruby with
a grey tint in the stuff, to give a transparent effect. I should like
Irene's opinion. I'm ordering the purple leather curtains for the
doorway of this court; and if you distemper the drawing-room ivory cream
over paper, you'll get an illusive look. You want to aim all through the
decorations at what I call charm."
Soames said: "You mean that my wife has charm!"
Bosinney evaded the question.
"You should have a clump of iris plants in the centre of that court."
Soames smiled superciliously.
"I'll look into Beech's some time," he said, "and see what's
appropriate!"
They found little else to say to each other, but on the way to the
Station Soames asked:
"I suppose you find Irene very artistic."
"Yes." The abrupt answer was as distinct a snub as saying: "If you want
to discuss her you can do it with someone else!"
And the slow, sulky anger Soames had felt all the afternoon burned the
brighter within him.
Neither spoke again till they were close to the Station, then Soames
asked:
"When do you expect to have finished?"
"By the end of June, if you really wish me to decorate as well."
Soames nodded. "But you quite understand," he said, "that the house is
costing me a lot beyond what I contemplated. I may as well tell you that
I should have thrown it up, only I'm not in the habit of giving up what
I've set my mind on."
Bosinney made no reply. And Soames gave him askance a look of dogged
dislike--for in spite of his fastidious air and that supercilious,
dandified taciturnity, Soames, with his set lips and squared chin, was
not unlike a bulldog....
When, at seven o'clock that evening, June arrived at 62, Montpellier
Square, the maid Bilson told her that Mr. Bosinney was in the
drawing-room; the mistress--she said--was dressing, and would be down in
a minute. She would tell her that Miss June was here.