Chivers crept solemnly away, as if to bury his dead, which he consigned, with dumb rites, to a situation of honourable publicity; then, as he came back, he replied without elation: “Miss Prodmore is here, mum. She’s having her tea.”
This, for his friend, was a confirmatory touch to be fitted with eagerness into the picture. “Yes, that’s exactly it—they’re always having their tea!”
“With Mr. Prodmore—in the morning-room,” the old man supplemented. “Captain Yule’s in the garden.”
“Captain Yule?”
“The new master. He’s also just arrived.”
The wonderful lady gave an immediate “Oh!” to the effect of which her silence for another moment seemed to add. “She didn’t tell me about him.”
“Well, mum,” said Chivers, “it do be a strange thing to tell. He had never—like, mum—so much as seen the place.”
“Before today—his very own?” This too, for the visitor, was an impression among impressions, and, like most of her others, it ended after an instant as a laugh. “Well, I hope he likes it!”
“I haven’t seen many, mum,” Chivers boldly declared, “that like it as much as you.”
She made with her handsome head a motion that appeared to signify still deeper things than he had caught. Her beautiful wondering eyes played high and low, like the flight of an imprisoned swallow, then, as she sank upon a seat, dropped at last as if the creature were bruised with its limits. “I should like it still better if it were my very own!”