“Nein: it is quitted.”
He pressed the electric button that was let into the edge of the table.
“Good-night,” he said. “It is your play, Aline. Auf Wiedersehen, Mr. Tempest. My servants will be in the hall.”
Helen and Mr. Boyton both rose to shake hands and the two guests left the room.
Aline gave a little sigh of relief.
“Such dear good people,” she said. “I felt sure you would not dislike meeting them, Helen, so I did not put them off. It will have been such a treat for them to come here and hear a talk of things outside their little Rectory. Let me see....”
Aline had announced that they kept country hours here, and consequently when a rubber came to an end, about half-past twelve she swept the cards together and gave a great country yawn. She accompanied Helen up to her room, alluded to the Napoleon bed on the foot board of which was a cluster of golden bees, reminded her that in her bath-room next door was hot water perpetually on tap, as the hot-water furnace burned day and night, like the fire of the Vestal Virgins, and told her that there was always a manicurist in the house, in case she wanted his services, and a telephone to her maid’s room. That was a device of Hermann’s; he had gone into it himself, most carefully, and had arranged that each bed-room communicated by telephone with the corresponding number in the servants’ rooms, so that No. 3 in the guests’ part of the house rang up No. 3 in that part of the servants’ quarters which was reserved for the valets and maids of visitors. Mr. Boyton, so she had ascertained from her own maid, had not brought a man with him—was not that odd, but she supposed that Mr. Boyton only had parlour-maids—so the first footman had been sent to sleep in No. 5 (servants’ quarters) in case Mr. Boyton wanted anything. If your friends were kind enough to come and stay with you in the country, the least you could do was to make them comfortable. “So, good-night.... It was sweet of you to come.”
Helen began to wonder, when she was left alone, just how comfortable she had been all evening. She knew now that she could have a hot bath or a manicurist or her maid at a moment’s notice, but she had somehow taken all that sort of thing for granted. If you wanted anything of the sort, you had it; it happened. But she found that she had not taken for granted a quantity of things that had actually occurred. It had not seemed to her really possible that you could be rude to your guests, or that you should take Bridge as anything else but a game, or that your children should sing the Watch by the Rhine as they were going to bed. These were all rather remarkable proceedings....
She did not trouble herself to disentangle them, when, after ringing for No. 3 servants’ quarters, her maid came in to brush her hair. But she had a general impression left on her mind that there was a great difference between friends and those who really were no more than acquaintances. Acquaintances gave you surprises—there was the root of it—friends never did. These surprises might in their very nature be pleasant or unpleasant; if they were pleasant, it was likely that the acquaintances, should they be equally satisfied with you, were on the high road towards friendship. But if these surprises were unpleasant....
She declined to pursue the subject, and spoke to her maid, who was being rather severe in her handling. Simpson had been her nursery-maid when she was a child, and now, austere and grey-haired, was as devoted to her still. At home there was another French young thing to supplement Simpson, but when Helen went on a quiet visit like this, it was always Simpson who attended her.