The way he’d laugh, and look at you, so interested in any little thing you said! It was wonderful.
What time did people in the world get up and start their day? Later than this, no doubt. But there’d be the waiting-room, where she’d sat with Sister Dominic and the orphans that first time of all. (Maybe she’d never set eyes on Dominic again.)
What for did that maid of his take so long to come to the door?
But it wasn’t the maid who opened the door at last.
It was a person in a blue apron, with a man’s cap pulled down over her eyes, and her sleeves rolled up, and a bucket with a mop in it at her down-at-heel feet.
“’E ain’t come yet. Won’t be ’ere, not for a hower, but if it’s the toothache, you can come in and wait.”
“Does he not live here, then?”
“Ho no,’e don’t live ’ere. But ’e comes reg’lar, and ’e’ll be along by-and-by. You go in and sit down. You won’t mind me going on with the cleaning-up? Turned cold all of a sudden, ain’t it?”
The rolled-back carpet in the waiting-room, the chairs piled, seat against seat, round the walls, the broom that presently chased into all the corners, made it seem colder.
It grew colder and colder as the hour went by.