there was a large amount of the chintz displayed, he congratulated himself over and over again on the luck which had first made him forget his aunt’s commission and had then put into his hands this extremely effective means of remedying his mistake. The pattern was, as he said at dinner, so restful and yet so far from being dull. And Miss Denton—who, by the way, had none of the stuff in her own room—was much disposed to agree with him.
At breakfast next morning he was induced to qualify his satisfaction to some extent—but very slightly. ‘There is one thing I rather regret,’ he said, ‘that we allowed them to join up the vertical bands of the pattern at the top. I think it would have been better to leave that alone.’
‘Oh?’ said his aunt interrogatively.
‘Yes: as I was reading in bed last night they kept catching my eye rather. That is, I found myself looking across at them every now and then. There was an effect as if some one kept peeping out between the curtains in one place or another, where there was no edge, and I think that was due to the joining up of the bands at the top. The only other thing that troubled me was the wind.’
