Yes, Miss Langley was at home. Of course, the Dictator knew that she would be, and yet in his heart he could almost have wished to hear that she was out. There is a mood of mind in which one likes any postponement. But the duty of friendship had to be done—and the Dictator was sorry for everybody.
The Dictator was met in the hall by the footman, and also by To-to. To-to was Helena's black poodle. The black poodle took to all Helena's friends very readily. Whom she liked, he liked. He had his ways, like his mistress—and he at once allowed Ericson to understand not only that Helena was at home, but that Helena was sitting just then in her own room, where she habitually received her friends. The footman told the Dictator that Miss Langley was at home—To-to told him what the footman could not have ventured to do, that she was waiting for him in her own drawing-room, and ready to receive him.
Now, how did To-to contrive to tell him that? Very easily, in truth. To-to had a keen, healthy curiosity. He was always anxious to know what was going on. The moment he heard the bell ring at the great door he wanted to know who was coming in, and he ran down the stairs and stood in the hall to find out. When the door was opened, and the visitor appeared, To-to instantly made up his mind. If it was an unfamiliar figure, To-to considered it an introduction in which he had no manner of interest, and, without waiting one second, he scampered back to rejoin his mistress, and try to explain to her that there was some very uninteresting man or woman coming to call on her. But if it was somebody he knew, and whom he knew that his mistress knew, then there were two courses open to him. If Helena was not in her sitting room, To-to welcomed the visitor in the most friendly and hospitable way, and then fell into the background, and took no further notice, but ranged the premises carelessly and on his own account. If, however, his mistress were in her drawing room, then To-to invariably preceded the visitor up the stairs, going in front even of the footman, and ushered the new-comer into my lady's chamber. The process of reasoning on To-to's part must have been somewhat after this fashion. 'My business is to announce my lady's friends, the people whom I, with my exquisite intelligence, know to be people whom she wants to see. If I know that she is in her drawing-room ready to see them, then, of course, it is my duty and my pleasure to go before, and announce them. But if I know, having just been there, that she is not yet there, then I have no function to perform. It is the business of some other creature—her maid very likely—to receive the news from the footman that someone is waiting to see her. That is a complex process with which I have nothing to do.' The favoured visitor, therefore—the visitor, that is to say, whom To-to favoured, believing him or her to be favoured by To-to's mistress—had to pass through what may be called two portals, or ordeals. First, he had to ask of the servant whether Miss Langley was at home. Being informed that she was at home, then it depended on To-to to let the visitor know whether Miss Langley was actually in her drawing-room waiting to receive him, or whether he was to be shown into the drawing-room and told that Miss Langley would be duly informed of his presence, and asked if he would be good enough to take a chair and wait for a moment. Never was To-to known to make the slightest mistake about the actual condition of things. Never had he run up in advance of the Dictator when his mistress was not seated in her drawing-room ready to receive her visitor. Never had he remained lingering in the hall and the passages when Miss Langley was in her room, and prepared for the reception. Evidently, To-to regarded himself as Helena's special functionary. The other attendants and followers—footmen, maids, and such like—might be allowed the privilege of saying whether Miss Langley was or was not at home to receive visitors; but the special and quite peculiar function of To-to was to make it clear whether Miss Langley was or was not at that very moment waiting in her own particular drawing-room to welcome them.
So the Dictator, who had not much time to spare, being pressed with various affairs to attend to, was much pleased to find that To-to not merely welcomed him when the door was opened—a welcome which the Dictator would have expected from To-to's undisguised regard and even patronage—but that To-to briskly ran up the stairs in advance of the footman, and ran before him in through the drawing-room door when the footman had opened it. The Dictator loved the dog because of the creature's friendship for him and love for its mistress. The Dictator did not know how much he loved the dog because the dog was devoted to Helena Langley. On the stairs, as he went up, a sudden pang passed through the Dictator's heart. It might, perhaps, have brought him even clearer warning than it did. 'If I succeed in my mission'—it might have told him—'what is to become of me?' But, although the shot of pain did pass through him, he did not give it time to explain itself.
Helena was seated on a sofa. The moment she heard his name announced she jumped up and ran to meet him.
'I ought to have gone beyond the threshold,' she said, blushing, 'to meet my king.'
'So kind of you,' he said, rather stiffly, 'to stay in for me. You have so many engagements.'
'As if I would not give up any engagement to please you! And the very first time you expressed any wish to see me!'
'Well, I have come talk to you about something very serious.'
She looked up amazed, her bright eyes broadening with wonder.