“Please, miss,” said the butler as Maggie passed through the baize door, “I think it right to tell you about cook. We find it very hard to put up with her in the servants' hall. She is a very violent-tempered woman; nor can I say much for her in other respects. Last week she sold twenty pounds of dripping, and it wasn't all dripping, miss, it was for the most part butter.”
“John, I really can't listen to any more stories about cook. Has the quarter-to-seven come in yet?”
“I haven't seen it pass, miss, but I saw Mr. Willy coming up the drive a minute ago.”
Willy entered, and she turned to him and said: “Where have you been to, Willy?”
“Brighton. Has father come in yet?”
“No. You came by the tramcar?”
“Yes.”
With shoulders set well back and toes turned out, Willy came along the passage. His manner was full of deliberation, and he carried a small brown paper parcel under his arm as if it were a sword of state. Maggie followed him up the steep and vulgarly carpeted staircase that branched into the various passages forming the upper part of the house. Willy's room was precise and grave, and there everything was held under lock and key. He put the brown paper parcel on the table; he took off his coat and laid it on the bed, heaving, at the same time, a sigh.
“Did you notice if the quarter-to-seven has been signalled?”
“Yes, but don't keep on worrying; the train is coming along the embankment.”