The door was opened by a quiet-looking, middle-aged man in drab livery, whose brown hair and cocoa-nut fibry whiskers, joined to a swinging, easy gait, suggested that he would not have been out of place on the deck of a vessel, an idea strengthened by an appearance, on one side of his face, as if he were putting his tongue in his cheek.
He drew back respectfully before Millicent could say, “Is Sir Gordon at home?” allowed her to pass, and then, as Thisbe followed her mistress, he gave her a very solemn wink, but without the vestige of a smile.
Thisbe gave her shawl a violent snatch, as if it were armour that she was drawing over a weak spot; but Tom Porter, Sir Gordon’s factotum, did not see it, for he was closing the door and thinking about how to hide the fact that his hands were marked with rouge with which he had been polishing the plate when the bell rang.
He led the way across the hall, which was so full of curiosities from all parts of the globe that it resembled a museum, and, opening a door at the end, ushered Millicent into Sir Gordon’s library, a neatly kept little room with a good deal of the air of a captain’s cabin in its furnishing; telescopes, compasses, and charts hung here and there, in company with books of a maritime character, while one side of the place was taken up by a large glass case containing a model of “The Sea Dream schooner yacht, the property of Gordon Bourne.” So read an inscription at the foot, engraved upon a brass plate.
Millicent remained standing with her veil down, while Tom Porter retired, closed the door, and, after giving notice of the arrival, went back into the hall, where Thisbe was standing in a very stern, uncompromising fashion.
Sir Gordon’s man wanted to arrange his white cravat, but his fingers were red, and for the same reason he was debarred from pushing the Brutus on his head a little higher, so that, unable to rearrange his plumage, he had to let it go.
He walked straight up to Thisbe, stared very hard at her, breathing to match, and then there was a low deep growl heard which bore some resemblance to “How are you?”
Thisbe was “Nicely, thank you,” but she did not say it nicely; it was snappish and short.
Mr Tom Porter did not seem to object to snappish shortness, for he growled forth:
“Come below?” and added, “my pantry?”