“Well, Mrs. Benton; off again!”
Mrs. Benton, plaiting her hands, for she had not yet lost something of the look and manner of a little girl, answered in her flat, but serene voice:
“Yes, sir; and I hope you're not going anywhere very dangerous this time. I always think you go to such dangerous places.”
“To Persia, Mrs. Benton, where the carpets come from.”
“Oh! yes, sir. Your washing's just come home.”
Her, apparently cast-down, eyes stored up a wealth of little details; the way his hair grew, the set of his back, the colour of his braces. But suddenly she said in a surprising voice:
“You haven't a photograph you could spare, sir, to leave behind? Mr. Benton was only saying to me yesterday, we've nothing to remember him by, in case he shouldn't come back.”
“Here's an old one.”
Mrs. Benton took the photograph.
“Oh!” she said; “you can see who it is.” And holding it perhaps too tightly, for her fingers trembled, she added: