Before Mr. Jordan could comprehend what the position was that this majestic old lady had occupied for many years, she rose from her chair in a very grave and stiff manner, and said, “Mr. Jordan, you may conduct me to my omnibus.”
Taking an impressive leave of Mrs. Dodson, who was a very florid and indecisive kind of lady, and of Police-Sergeant Dodson, who was a very stolid and imperturbable kind of man, the old lady left the room with a demeanour of marked hauteur, humbly followed by the abashed form of Mr. William Jordan.
“What price Luney and Aunt Tabitha?” said Mr. Dodson fils from the seclusion of a card-table that had been set up in a corner. “I expect he will cut me out in her will, but if he does I sha’n’t begrudge it him.”
As Mr. Jordan conducted the majestic old lady to her omnibus, she had the condescension to inform him that there was something about him that engaged her curiosity.
“I suppose it is,” she said in her ample and uncompromising manner, “that even when a Christian gentlewoman gets to be as old as I am she does not lose her taste for a gentleman. I have had to live without the sight of one for many years now. I loathe my nephew. Yet he is a young man who will make a mark in the world. You, Mr. Jordan, will make no mark in the world, but I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting you again.”
It was with this odd combination of tenderness and ferocity, of clear-sightedness and sentiment, that the austere old creature, with a smile for her cavalier that was almost gentle, ensconced herself in a dark corner of the omnibus. On the way home to her lonely hearth, at No. 5 Petersfield Terrace, Brixton, she muttered, “There is no place in this world for that young man. I would like to know his history; I would like to know his history!”
Mr. Jordan finally quitted No. 8 Gladstone Villas, Midlothian Avenue, that evening a few minutes before midnight. He found himself again committed to the charge of Mr. Percival Davis. They managed to catch the last train to the City.
“Mark my words, Luney,” said Mr. Davis, with a prophetic fervour, as they sat opposite one another in the train, “Jimmy has done for himself with Chrissie. She will never forgive his governor sitting down to supper in his rozzer’s kit. J. Dodson knows most things, but the weasel was sleeping that time. I think, my worthy Lunatic, this is where one P. Davis goes in again himself.”
It was a feeble, weary, limping figure—for the new shoes were excruciatingly tight—that crept into the little room during the small hours of the morning. The white-haired man was conning the pages of the great book.