on new ground. She was led into the new drawing-room, done in new
peacock-and-bronze brocade furniture, with gilt and brass and white
walls. This was the Withams' new house, and Lottie was proud of it.
The two women had a short confidential chat. Arthur lingered in the
doorway a while, then went away.
Alvina did not really like Lottie Witham. Yet the other woman was
sharp and shrewd in the uptake, and for some reason she fancied
Alvina. So she was invited to tea at Manchester House.
After this, so many difficulties rose up in James Houghton's way
that he was worried almost out of his life. His two women left him
alone. Outside difficulties multiplied on him till he abandoned his
scheme--he was simply driven out of it by untoward circumstances.
Lottie Witham came to tea, and was shown over Manchester House. She
had no opinion at all of Manchester House--wouldn't hang a cat in
such a gloomy hole. _Still_, she was rather impressed by the sense
of superiority.
"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed as she stood in Alvina's bedroom,
and looked at the enormous furniture, the lofty tableland of the
bed.
"Oh my goodness! I wouldn't sleep in _that_ for a trifle, by myself!
Aren't you frightened out of your life? Even if I had Arthur at one
side of me, I should be that frightened on the other side I
shouldn't know what to do. Do you sleep here by yourself?"
"Yes," said Alvina laughing. "I haven't got an Arthur, even for one
side."
"Oh, my word, you'd want a husband on both sides, in that bed," said
Lottie Witham.
Alvina was asked back to tea--on Wednesday afternoon, closing day.
Arthur was there to tea--very ill at ease and feeling as if his
hands were swollen. Alvina got on better with his wife, who watched
closely to learn from her guest the secret of repose. The
indefinable repose and inevitability of a lady--even of a lady who
is nervous and agitated--this was the problem which occupied
Lottie's shrewd and active, but lower-class mind. She even did not
resent Alvina's laughing attempts to draw out the clumsy Arthur:
because Alvina was a lady, and her tactics must be studied.
Alvina really liked Arthur, and thought a good deal about
him--heaven knows why. He and Lottie were quite happy together, and
he was absorbed in his petty ambitions. In his limited way, he was
invincibly ambitious. He would end by making a sufficient fortune,
and by being a town councillor and a J.P. But beyond Woodhouse he
did not exist. Why then should Alvina be attracted by him? Perhaps
because of his "closeness," and his secret determinedness.
When she met him in the street she would stop him--though he was
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