Then she came back and peered over his work.
"What is it ?" she asked.
"Still design, for decorating stuffs, and for embroidery." She bent short-sightedly over the drawings.
It irritated him that she peered so into everything that was his, searching him out.

He went into the parlour and returned with a bundle of brownish linen.

Carefully unfolding it, he spread it on the floor.

It proved to be a curtain or portiere, beautifully stencilled with a design on roses.
"Ah, how beautiful!" she cried.
The spread cloth, with its wonderful reddish roses and dark green stems, all so simple, and somehow so wicked-looking, lay at her feet.

She went on her knees before it, her dark curls dropping.