Morris began to grow more and more uncertain in spite of himself. Everything was against her; her look, though how he knew that, it would be difficult to tell; her composure, not angry as a real lady should have been (in his opinion) and indisposed to bandy words. A curate’s wife would have retired in high dudgeon before he had enunciated his first phrase. Little Miss Grey would have transfixed him with a look, and turned away; but this visitor was not disinclined even to chaff the butler, therefore she was no lady. Yet there was something in her patronage, in her composure, and last of all in that sudden use of his own name, which gave the man a vague sensation of alarm.
‘You seem to know my name,’ he said, ‘but you haven’t even taken the trouble, ma’am, to give me yours.’
Upon which the visitor broke into a laugh.
‘Mine is not very distinguished, Morris,’ she said, ‘I am Mrs. Brown, but not the dressmaker from the village to ask for orders from Julie, as you seem to suppose. Come, come, there’s been enough of this.’ As she spoke, she passed Mr. Morris adroitly, and entered the great lofty hall which formed the vestibule of the Swinford mansion. ‘There has been no change made, I see,’ she said, with a rapid glance round; ‘do you mean to tell me, Morris, that your lady is going to support all this and make no change?’
The hall was almost dark, the lamps as yet unlighted, and only a dim evening light in the row of long windows. Some one stirred, however, in a corner, and came forward, only half distinguishable in the twilight.
‘Morris,’ said this half-seen person, ‘you know my mother never receives at this hour——’
‘Ah, Leo,’ said the visitor, with a slight quaver in the assurance of her voice, ‘is it you?’
When Morris heard his master called Leo, he retired discreetly with a momentary sense that the sky, or rather the gilded roof of the hall, was falling upon him. Had it occurred to him, so assured in his duties, to make a tremendous mistake? The feeling at first gave him a sensation not to be put into words, and his impulse was to take immediate flight; but on reflection, he felt it so very unlikely that he could have made a mistake, that he subsided into the shelter of one of the pillars and waited to see what would happen. Mr. Leo Swinford was known among the servants as a most affable gentleman; but Morris was well aware that his master was not one to submit to any impertinence. It was a moment of great excitement, almost too thrilling—for a butler has the pride of his profession, like another, and it would have been dreadful to him to have to acknowledge that he had made a mistake.
‘I fear I must say that you have the advantage of me,’ Leo said, with a coldness that was balm to Morris’s soul.
The visitor came forward with a short laugh, to one of the windows.