Degrees of unrest we felt, but the actual thing did not disclose itself.
It did not happen.
I felt strangely at sea for a moment. Frances would interpret hesitation
as endorsement, and encouragement might be the last thing that could
help her.
"Sleeping in a strange house," I answered at length, "is often difficult
at first, and one feels lonely. After fifteen months in our tiny flat
one feels lost and uncared-for in a big house. It's an uncomfortable
feeling--I know it well. And this is a barrack, isn't it? The masses of
furniture only make it worse. One feels in storage somewhere
underground--the furniture doesn't furnish. One must never yield to
fancies, though--"
Frances looked away towards the windows; she seemed disappointed a
little.
"After our thickly-populated Chelsea," I went on quickly, "it seems
isolated here."
But she did not turn back, and clearly I was saying the wrong thing. A
wave of pity rushed suddenly over me. Was she really frightened,
perhaps? She was imaginative, I knew, but never moody; common sense was
strong in her, though she had her times of hypersensitiveness. I caught
the echo of some unreasoning, big alarm in her. She stood there, gazing
across my balcony towards the sea of wooded country that spread dim and
vague in the obscurity of the dusk.
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