He felt that they were crowded in an interested,
amused group behind him waiting to see what he would do. Then a little
bell rang somewhere in the house, a voice cried "Martha!"
He moved forward and pulled the wire of the bell; there was a wheezy
jangle, a pause, and then a sharp irritated sound far away in the heart
of the house, as though he had hit it in the wind and it protested. An
old woman, very neat (she was certainly a Glebeshire woman), told him
that Mr. Trenchard was at home. She took him through the dark passages
into the study that he knew so well, and said that Mr. Trenchard would
be with him in a moment.
It was the same study, and yet how different! Many of the old pieces of
furniture were there--the deep, worn leather arm-chair in which Mr.
Lasher had been sitting when he had his famous discussion with Mr.
Pidgen, the same bookshelves, the same tiles in the fireplace with Bible
pictures painted on them, the same huge black coal-scuttle, the same
long, dark writing-table. But instead of the old order and discipline
there was now a confusion that gave the room the air of a waste-paper
basket.
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