He had remarked for a long time how much more careful she had become about her personal appearance, which had wonderfully improved. She no longer went about ragged, unkempt, and _décolletée_, but wore her jacket buttoned up modestly to her throat, with the ends neatly tucked under her waistband. A woollen scarf was knotted round her neck by way of giving a finish to her costume, and her skirt carefully brushed and mended. Her hair did not hang about her as formerly, in untidy plaits and a hundred rough, loose curls, but was combed and neatly dressed. Of a morning the top of her head sometimes presented a smooth, polished surface, the effects of the shower-bath, by means of which she brought her unruly mane into subjection.
The weather grew bitterly cold, but she still shivered in her cotton gown, only throwing on the red cross-over when she went into the open air.
One evening as she was preparing for her regular weekly expedition for the purchase of provisions, and had come to him for orders, he said--
"Why have you brought no winter clothes back with you yet, Regina?"
"There's a----" she began eagerly, then stopped and blushed.
"There's a jacket at the shop--a blue cloth one trimmed with beautiful fur. The shopman says----"
He smiled. "Thank God," he thought "she is beginning to be human at last. A love of finery has awakened in her."
"That it would fit me exactly. And I need something warm and comfortable for the long walks. But it's a real lady's jacket, and----"
"All the more reason why you should have it," he interrupted, laughing. "Don't come back without the jacket, now mind. Good-night, and a pleasant journey."
With a joyous exclamation she stooped to kiss his hand, but he evaded the caress.
When her footsteps had died away in the darkness, he took the lamp and went into the greenhouse, which was her private apartment.
The fire still smouldered on the hearth, but the room was icily cold and comfortless. A stray flake or two whirled through the holes in the roof, for outside a gentle dusting of snow had begun to fall.
"Why doesn't she doctor the laths?" he thought, and resolved that the next morning he would come and lay boards over the weak places. He climbed on one of the boxes and tested with a tap the glass roofing. Then he understood why Regina preferred to sleep half in the open air. The leaden framework of the panes had become rotten and brittle. At his mere touch the whole decrepit roof rattled and trembled in all its joints. Any attempt to mend it would bring it down altogether.