“That will do.” The housekeeper left, agitated. “You will probably be in time for the fish,” he added, as he bowed to Robert.
“If the clothes do not fit, sir?”
“Your father was about your height and nearly as large, and fashions have not changed much.”
A few moments afterwards Gaston was in the room which his father had occupied twenty-seven years before. The taciturn housekeeper, eyeing him excitedly the while, put out the clothes. He did not say anything till she was about to go. Then:
“Hovey, were you here in my father’s time?”
“I was under-parlourmaid, sir,” she said.
“And you are housekeeper now—good!”
The face of the woman crimsoned, hiding her dour wrinkles. She turned away her head.
“I’d have given my right hand if he hadn’t gone, sir.”
Gaston whistled softly, then: