“I hear, Watkins,” Mrs. Crespin told him, looking him well in the face—and wishing the light were not at his back, “that the ayah that so kindly attended to me is your wife.”
“That’s right, ma’am,” Watkins said staunchly enough. Crespin wondered lazily if the cockney was fond—or even proud—of his native wife. Such things always interested Antony Crespin rather.
“She gave me most efficient assistance,” Mrs. Crespin said, speaking very deliberately, that she might study his face the longer, “and as she seems to know no English, I couldn’t thank her. Will you be good enough to tell her how much I appreciated all she did for me?”
“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” the valet said as if he meant it. “She’ll be proud to hear it.” And the man looked genuinely pleased. He was genuinely pleased; for the shifty little cockney was fond of his big dark wife, and proud of her too, as small men often are of wives that o’ertop them. And it was, as it chanced, the one good human spot in Samuel Watkins’ thin, brutal heart. “Is that all, ma’am?” he asked after a pause—for she still was looking at him as if she might have more to say.
But she could think of nothing else, and she believed that she had gained her point, so she nodded pleasantly, and dismissed him with a pleasant, “That’s all, thank you, Watkins.”
The man bowed, and went back to the loggia, but he passed now to the outer side of the dinner table, where, seeming to be studying it still, he stood watching them warily. They involuntarily drew closer together, but Traherne, seeming to be watching idly the kindling mountains and sky, was watching Watkins as narrowly as Watkins watched them.
“You’ve a good memory for faces, Lu,” the Major said to his wife. “Do you spot him?”
“Don’t let him see we’re talking about him,” she cautioned. “I believe I do know him, but I’m not quite sure. Do you remember,” she said slowly, “the first year we were in India, there was a man in the Dorsets that used often to be on guard outside the mess-room?”
Antony Crespin sprang to his feet. “By God,” he cried, “you’ve hit it!”