"This is what life comes to," they said in their silent fashion.
This faded rubbish in buhl and marqueterie was useful enough to Mr. Lovel,
however; and on his canvas the faded furniture glowed and sparkled with all
its original brightness, fresh as the still-life of Meissonier. There were
a child's toys scattered on the floor; and Clarissa heard a woman's voice
talking to a child in an adjoining room, on the other side of a pair
of tall pink folding-doors. Then she heard her brother's voice saying
something to the servant; and at the sound she felt as if she must have
fallen to the ground. Then one of the doors was opened, and a woman came
in; a pretty, faded-looking woman, dressed in a light-blue morning wrapper
that might very well have been cleaner; a woman with a great deal of dyed
hair in an untidy mass at the back of her head; a woman whom Clarissa felt
it must be a difficult thing to like.
This was her brother's wife, of course. There was a boy of four or five
years old clinging to his mother's gown, and Clarissa's heart yearned
to the child. He had Austin's face. It would be easy to love _him_, she
thought.
"Mr. Austin is in his paintin'-room, madame," said the wife, putting on a
kind of company manner. "Did you wish to see him about a picture? Je parle
tres poo de Francais, mais si----"
"I am English," Clarissa answered, smiling; "if you will kindly tell Mr.
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