Page 398 - sons-and-lovers

almost martial. In a moment Clara appeared. She flushed
deeply, and he was covered with confusion. It seemed as if
she did not like being discovered in her home circumstanc-
es.
‘I thought it couldn’t be your voice,’ she said.
But she might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.
She invited him out of the mausoleum of a parlour into the
kitchen.
That was a little, darkish room too, but it was smoth-
ered in white lace. The mother had seated herself again by
the cupboard, and was drawing thread from a vast web of
lace. A clump of fluff and ravelled cotton was at her right
hand, a heap of three-quarter-inch lace lay on her left,
whilst in front of her was the mountain of lace web, piling
the hearthrug. Threads of curly cotton, pulled out from be-
tween the lengths of lace, strewed over the fender and the
fireplace. Paul dared not go forward, for fear of treading on
piles of white stuff.
On the table was a jenny for carding the lace. There was a
pack of brown cardboard squares, a pack of cards of lace, a
little box of pins, and on the sofa lay a heap of drawn lace.
The room was all lace, and it was so dark and warm that
the white, snowy stuff seemed the more distinct.
‘If you’re coming in you won’t have to mind the work,’
said Mrs. Radford. ‘I know we’re about blocked up. But sit
you down.’
Clara, much embarrassed, gave him a chair against the
wall opposite the white heaps. Then she herself took her
place on the sofa, shamedly.