Bressant occupied two adjoining rooms at Abbie's boarding-house; one
contained his bed and the other was fitted up as his study. They were on
the second floor of the house, and attainable through two turns in the
lower entry, a winding flight of narrow stairs, and an uncertain, darkly
erratic route above.
The study was some twelve feet by eight; the floor ornamented by a
carpet which, to judge from the size of the pattern, must have been
designed to grace some fifty-foot drawing-room. The furniture consisted
of a deal table with a folding leaf, a chair, a stove--which, perhaps
because it was so small, had been permitted to remain all summer--and a
broad-seated lounge with squeaky springs, but quite roomy and
comfortable, which monopolized a large portion of the room. The walls
were papered with a bewildering diamond pattern, in blue and white. Upon
the outside window-sill stood a pot of geraniums, and another of
heliotrope.
A good many books were stowed away in various parts of the study; piled
one upon another in the corner by the stove, ranged side by side beneath
the lounge, carefully disposed upon the inner window-sill, and occupying
as much space as could be spared to them on the table. There were few
ornaments to be seen; no landscapes or hunting-scenes--no pictures of
pretty women--no fancy pieces for the mantel--no wine either, nor
cigars, for Bressant neither smoked nor drank. A beautifully-finished
and colored drawing of a patent derrick, in plan and side elevation, was
pinned to the wall opposite the window. Above the mantel-piece hung an
ingeniously-contrived card almanac, by which the day of week and month
could be told for a hundred years to come. Two small globes, terrestrial
and astronomical, stood upon the table; on the mantel-piece was an
ordinary kerosene-lamp, with a conical shade of enamelled green paper,
arabesqued in black, and ornamented with three transparencies,
representing (when the lamp was lighted) bloody and fiery scenes in the
late war; but in the daytime appearing to be nothing more terrible than
plain pieces of white tissue-paper.
For two weeks Bressant had done his studying and thinking in this room.
He had enormous powers of application, naturally and by acquisition, and
the first fortnight had seen them exerted to their full extent. This
diligence, however, was practised not so much because the course of
study marked out necessitated it, as by way of voluntary
self-discipline. His first evening's experience in the Parsonage garden
had given the young man a serious shock; a disturbing influence had
obtained possession of him, of which he could understand no more than
that it appeared to have some connection with Cornelia. It interfered,
at unexpected moments, with his processes of thought; it distracted his
schemes of argument; it wrote itself unintelligibly upon the page he was
reading. It even followed him in his rough tramps up the hills and
through the woods, and sometimes shook the hand which held the pen
during his compositions.