They returned to Pentonville, settled their accounts, packed their belongings, and by evening were able to sit down to a dinner cooked by their own servant—under Adela’s supervision. Mutimer purchased a couple of bottles of claret on the way home, that the first evening might be wholly cheerful. Of a sudden he had become a new man; the sullenness had passed, and he walked from room to room with much the same air of lofty satisfaction as when he first surveyed the interior of Wanley Manor. He made a show of reading in the hour before dinner, but could not keep still for more than a few minutes at a time; he wanted to handle the furniture, to survey the prospect from the windows, to walk out into the road and take a general view of the house. When their meal had begun, and the servant, instructed to wait at table, chanced to be out of the room, he remarked:
‘We’ll begin, of course, to dine at the proper time again. It’s far better, don’t you think so?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘And, by-the-by, you’ll see that Mary has a cap.’
Adela smiled.
‘Yes, I’ll see she has.’
Mary herself entered. Some impulse she did not quite understand led Adela to look at the girl in her yet capless condition. She said something which would require Mary to answer, and found herself wondering at the submissive tone, the repeated ‘Mum.’
‘Yes,’ she mused with herself, ‘she is our creature. We pay her and she must attire herself to suit our ideas of propriety. She must remember her station.’
‘What is it?’ Mutimer asked, noticing that she had again smiled.
‘Nothing.’