"Thank you;" then they too pass through the window, and the detective goes through the ordeal of presentation to Aunt Honor.
Mrs. Aliston, being a thorough woman, who knows her perquisites, gets through with the necessary amount of astonishment, ejaculations, questionings, and expressions of delight; all things are overcome by time, even a woman's volubility. And during the flow of her discourse the detective is communing thus with his "inner consciousness:"
"So we have been retained by this handsome young lady? Well, that's intelligence! and what does the old lady mean by supposing that Mr. Lamotte has told me this and that? Who the deuce is Lamotte? Why the deuce don't somebody ask me how I came to be perched in that tree? Do they think it's the proper thing for detectives to tumble in among them out of the trees and the skies? After all, it is like a drama, for I'll be blessed if I see any sense in it all."
"I see you are all more or less attracted by my personal appearance," he says, after Aunt Honor has given up the floor. "Now that I think of it, it's not just the thing for a drawing room."
Mr. Neil Bathurst, or his present presentment, is a medium sized man, attired in garments that have once been elegant, but are now frayed, threadbare, travel worn; his feet are encased in boots that have once been jaunty; his hat is as rakish as it is battered; his face wears that dull reddish hue, common to fair complexions that have been long exposed to sun and wind; his hair and beard, somewhat matted, somewhat disordered, may have borne some tinge of auburn or yellow once, but they too, have, unmistakeably, battled with the sun, and have come out a light hay color. As Constance looks at him, she, mentally, confesses that he is certainly the oddest figure she has ever entertained in her drawing room.
"I have been wondering just what grade of humanity you are supposing yourself to represent just now," says Doctor Heath, eyeing him quizzically.
"What!" with mock humility, "am I thus a failure? Miss Wardour, look at me well; do you not recognize my social rank?"
Constance surveys him afresh, with critical eye.
"I think," she says, "I recognize the gentleman tramp; one of the sort who asks to wash his face before eating, and to chop your wood after."
"Right!" says the detective. "My self-respect returns; I am not a bungler. In the morning I shall be on the ground, to wash my face, and chop your wood; which reminds me, your servants, they must not see me here. I must depart as I came, and soon."