"Yes," I replied with dignity.
"Is that all?" said the page.
"That is all, thank you, little boy," I replied, at which the child departed with an air of disappointment.
And then the manservant ushered me into a magnificent anteroom done in gold paneling and mauve velvet upholstery, most beautiful and in the best of taste. I subsequently ascertained that I was in the royal suite of the hotel, and that it occupied the entire floor.
"Will you be seated, please?" said the servant, handing me to a golden armchair. I dropped his arm, which I had taken upon entering, as is the custom in my circle where a butler is still maintained. "Mr. Pegg is interviewing another applicant in the drawing-room, but I believe he will shortly be at liberty." And with that he left me.
I took a tentative perch on the very edge of my magnificent seat, clasping my reticule firmly and feeling as though I had suddenly discovered myself in the midst of a dream which refused the half-conscious mind the acknowledgment of unreality. It was extraordinary, really, and I wondered who and what the unseen applicant might be, and if the position might not already be filled. I almost hoped it was, so overpowering was the room in which I sat, and yet it was patent that the advertiser must truly be a person of means and that the emolument would be considerable—certainly not less than four or five hundred a year—and I trembled at the thought that perhaps fortune had already dedicated this to another.
But before many moments had passed the door into the adjoining room was opened and two persons entered—a man and a woman—the later unquestionably my predecessor.
She was a vulgar overdressed person much younger than myself, and at the moment her attractions were not enhanced by a fit of anger. Her language was wholly unintelligible to me.
"Of course I thought you was a motion-picture bird!" she snapped, "and character parts is my middle name. Me a governess? My Lord—not for a gift!"
"Don't trouble yourself; nobody'll try and force it on you," said the man. "Good day, ma'am!"