Jones looked over into the well of the hall, then he began to descend the stairs.
He had intended, on finding a hat in the hall, to clap it on and make a clean bolt for freedom and the light of heaven, get back to the Savoy, dress himself in another suit, and once more himself, go for Rochester, but this was no hall with a hat-rack and umbrella-stand. Knights in armour were guarding it, and a flunkey, six feet high, in red plush breeches, and with calves that would have made Victor Jones scream with laughter under normal conditions.
The flunkey, seeing our friend, stepped to a door, opened it, and held it open for him. Not to enter the room thus indicated would have been possible enough, but the compelling influence of that vast flunkey made it impossible to Jones.
His volition had fled, he was subdued to his surroundings, for the moment conquered.
He entered a breakfast room, light and pleasantly furnished, where at a breakfast table and before a silver tea urn sat a lady of forty or so, thin faced, high nosed, aristocratic and rather faded.
She was reading a letter, and when she saw the incomer she rose from the table and gathered some other letters up. Then she, literally, swept from the room. She looked at him as she passed, and it seemed to Jones that he had never known before the full meaning of the word “scorn.”
For a wild second he thought that all had been discovered, that the police were now sure to arrive. Then he knew at once. Nothing had been discovered, the delusion held even for this woman, that glance was meant for Rochester, not for him, and was caused by the affair of last night, by other things, too, maybe, but that surely.
Uncomfortable, angry, nervous, wild to escape, and then yielding to caution, he took his seat at the table where a place was laid—evidently for him.
The woman had left an envelope on the table, he glanced at it.
The Honble: Venetia Birdbrook,