It is like a soured, elderly
caustic old maid, unhappy in its own experiences and determined to make
every one else unhappy in theirs. Peter, of course, did not see these
things, because it was very dark, but he wished he had not come.
The Signor had a key of his own and Peter was soon inside a hall that smelt
of oilcloth and the cooking of beef; the gas was burning, but the only
things that really benefited from its light were a long row of mournful
black coats that hung against the wall.
Peter sneezed, and was suddenly conscious of an enormous woman whom he knew
by instinct to be Mrs. Brockett. She was truly enormous--she stood facing
him like some avenging Fate. She had the body of a man--flat, straight,
broad. Her black hair, carefully parted down the middle, was brushed back
and bound into hard black coils low down over the neck. She stood there,
looking down on them, her arms akimbo, her legs apart. Her eyes were black
and deep set, her cheek bones very prominent, her nose thin and sharp; her
black dress caught in a little at the waist, fell otherwise in straight
folds to her feet. There was a faint moustache on her upper lip, her hands,
with long white slender fingers, were beautiful, lying straight by her
side, against the stuff of her dress.
"Well?" she said--and her voice was deep like a man's. "Good evening,
Signor.
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