“Now, Ma’am, if you please,” said the waiter inquiringly.
“Is Mr Gerard here?” said Sybil.
“No. Ma’am; Mr Gerard has not been here to-day, nor yesterday neither”—and he went on throwing the sand.
“I should like to see the master of the house,” said Sybil very humbly.
“Should you, Ma’am?” said the waiter, but he gave no indication of assisting her in the fulfilment of her wish.
Sybil repeated that wish, and this time the waiter said nothing. This vulgar and insolent neglect to which she was so little accustomed depressed her spirit. She could have encountered tyranny and oppression, and she would have tried to struggle with them; but this insolence of the insignificant made her feel her insignificance; and the absorption all this time of the guests in their newspapers aggravated her nervous sense of her utter helplessness. All her feminine reserve and modesty came over her; alone in this room among men, she felt overpowered, and she was about to make a precipitate retreat when the clock of the coffee-room sounded the half hour. In a paroxysm of nervous excitement she exclaimed, “Is there not one among you who will assist me?”
All the newspaper readers put down their journals and stared.
“Hoity-toity,” said the waiter, and he left off throwing the sand.
“Well, what’s the matter now?” said one of the guests.
“I wish to see the master of the house on business of urgency,” said Sybil, “to himself and to one of his friends, and his servant here will not even reply to my inquiries.”