"We'll get a taxi, then—or, better still, come and have a chop with me—I want a word with you."
Edward was delighted. Surely things were far better than they had been for a quarter of a century. Yesterday this same man would have passed him with perhaps a nod, perhaps not even that.
The change that had come over Edward since his release from bondage was evidently being sustained by events. For fifteen years he had passed the spacious grill-room in Gracechurch Street, with its noble array of chops and parsley in the window, in which he now found himself, on his way to the little eating-house up the court where he had taken his modest midday meal of sandwiches and stout. There was a sense of well-being about his present surroundings that gave him a feeling as though he had set foot in a new world and that he meant to remain in it. The snowy linen, the silver and glass, the little green-curtained alcoves, the obsequious waiters, the flickering and hissing of the grill at the further end of the room, presided over by the white-clad chef, all played their part in the awakening of Edward Povey.
"It's not much that I wanted to speak to you about, Povey, but I thought you might help me. You'll be looking round for another place, I suppose, but if you can find time to run out to Bushey now and again, you'll be obliging me—personally."
Edward Povey expressed his willingness to do all that lay in his power.
"It's only to have a look at my little cottage there, Povey; I've been living there on and off, and now I'm off to Switzerland. My man goes with me, so I want you to run out and see that things are all right. I'll give you the key. Any letters that come you can keep for me until my return. I've got a few decent pictures at the cottage and some old silver that I'm anxious not to leave altogether unattended. Can I count on you?"
Edward repeated his assurances, but a sense of disappointment had come over him as Kyser had been speaking. The adventure was not panning out as he had hoped. At the same time, he told himself that he would be paid for his services, perhaps liberally, and it might prevent him having to touch the little nest-egg in the Post Office Savings Bank.
When Edward parted with his late employer and left the grill-room it was with the key of Adderbury Cottage, Bushey Heath, in his pocket, and rather a feeling of resentment against Mr. Kyser and his firm, who did not hesitate to use a servant of twenty-two years' standing as a mere caretaker.
And resentment was a dangerous thing in the brain of the new Edward Povey.