He had deep black eyes, and black hair, like Hilda's; good, regular teeth, and a clear complexion; perhaps his nose was rather large, but it was straight. With his large pale hands he occasionally stroked his long soft moustache; the chin was blue. He was smartly dressed in dark blue; he had a beautiful neck-tie, and the genuine whiteness of his wristbands was remarkable in a district where starched linen was usually either grey or bluish. He was not a dandy, but he respected his person; he evidently gave careful attention to his body; and this trait alone set him apart among the citizens of Turnhill.
"Yes," said Hilda. She thought: "He's a very handsome man! How strange I don't remember seeing him in the streets!" She was in awe of him. He was indefinitely older than herself; and she felt like a child, out of place in the easy-chair.
"I suppose it's about the rent-collecting?" he pursued.
"Yes--it is," she answered, astonished that he could thus divine her purpose. "I mean--"
"What does your mother want to do?"
"Oh!" said Hilda, speaking low. "It's not mother. I've come to consult you myself. Mother doesn't know. I'm nearly twenty-one, and it's really my property, you know!" She blushed with shame.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. He tried to disguise his astonishment in an easy, friendly smile. But he was most obviously startled. He looked at Hilda in a different way, with a much intensified curiosity.
"Yes," she resumed. He now seemed to her more like a fellow-creature, and less like a member of the inimical older generation.
"So you're nearly twenty-one?"
"In December," she said. "And I think under my father's will--" She stopped, at a loss. "The fact is, I don't think mother will be quite able to look after the property properly, and I'm afraid--you see, now that Mr. Skellorn has had this stroke--"