The kitchen was on this floor, and passing its door, which was open a crack, they were observed by the servants, whose thoughts, communicated to each other by looks, may be roughly reproduced by such rude symbols as Aha and Oho—symbols which represented and included their appreciation of the inevitable, their foreknowledge of the inevitable, and their complete understanding and approval.
“Are you going upstairs?” asked Briggs, as she paused at the foot of them.
“Yes.”
“Which room do you sit in? The drawing-room, or the small yellow room?”
“In my own room.”
So then he couldn’t go up with her; so then all he could do was to wait till she came out again.
He longed to ask her which was her own room—it thrilled him to hear her call any room in his house her own room—that he might picture her in it. He longed to know if by any happy chance it was his room, for ever after to be filled with her wonder; but he didn’t dare. He would find that out later from some one else—Francesca, anybody.
“Then I shan’t see you again till dinner?”
“Dinner is at eight,” was Scrap’s evasive answer as she went upstairs.
He watched her go.