French turned back with a start of joy. “Why, yes—I was!” he said instantly.
The parlour-maid opened the door a little wider. “Of course, properly speaking, you should have a card from the agent; but Mrs. Paul did say, if anyone was very anxious—May I ask, sir, if you know Mrs. Paul?”
The young man lowered his voice reverentially to answer: “No; but I knew Mrs. Morland.”
The parlour-maid looked as if he had misunderstood her question. After a moment’s thought she replied: “I don’t think I recall the name.”
They gazed at each other across incalculable distances, and Willis French found no reply. “What on earth can she suppose I want to see the house for?” he could only wonder.
Her next question told him. “If it’s very urgent, sir—” another glance at the cut of his coat seemed to strengthen her, and she moved back far enough to let him get a foot across the threshold. “Would it be to hire or to buy?”
Again they stared at each other till French saw his own wonder reflected in the servant’s doubtful face; then the truth came to him in a rush. The house was not being shown to him because it had once been Emily Morland’s and he had been recognized as a pilgrim to the shrine of genius, but because it was Mrs. Donald Paul’s and he had been taken for a possible purchaser!
All his disenchantment rose to his lips; but it was checked there by the leap of prudence. He saw that if he showed his wonder he might lose his chance.
“Oh, it would be to buy!” he said; for, though the mere thought of hiring was a desecration, few things would have seemed more possible to him, had his fortune been on the scale of his enthusiasm, than to become the permanent custodian of the house.
The feeling threw such conviction into his words that the parlour-maid yielded another step.