Pendyce there passed a shiver.
'Why doesn't George open the door?' she thought. 'What--what is this man
doing?'
The artist dropped his hand.
"Thanks so much!" he said. "I'll knock again. There! that would raise
the dead!"
And he laughed.
An unreasoning terror seized on Mrs. Pendyce.
"Oh," she stammered, "I must get in--I must get in!"
She took the knocker herself, and fluttered it against the door.
"You see," said the artist, "they're all alike; these knockers are as
stiff' as pokers."
He again curved his hand over his eyes. Mrs. Pendyce leaned against the
door; her knees were trembling violently.
'What is happening?' she thought. 'Perhaps he's only asleep,
perhaps----Oh God!'
She beat the knocker with all her force. The door yielded, and in the
space stood George. Choking back a sob, Mrs. Pendyce went in. He banged
the door behind her.
For a full minute she did not speak, possessed still by that strange
terror and by a sort of shame. She did not even look at her son, but
cast timid glances round his room. She saw a gallery at the far end,
and a conical roof half made of glass. She saw curtains hanging all
the gallery length, a table with tea-things and decanters, a round iron
stove, rugs on the floor, and a large full-length mirror in the centre
of the wall.
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