Behind the curtain she found three pegs and a looking-glass; which articles, if she had not been too nervous to observe closely, might have struck her as being even suspiciously new. She had no coat on, but she had a hat, which she hung upon one of the pegs, with a breathless feeling, as if the simple action, in that strange place, stood to her as an emblem of the passage she was about to take from the old world to the new; as she hung up her hat, with Mr. Gibb's stony gaze fixed on her coldly from behind, it almost seemed to her that with it she hung up her freedom, and passed into servitude. Nor was this feeling lessened by the unaccustomed, and unnatural, rigidity of Mr. Gibb's bearing; she being unaware of the fact that Mr. Hooper had informed the young gentleman, not ten minutes before she came, that if he did not treat her with the profound and distant respect with which a divinity ought to be treated, the consequences would be serious for him. While she was still touching her hair with her fingers, as a girl must do when she has just taken her hat off, he inquired, with what he felt to be cutting coldness--
"Have you quite finished?"
"Yes, Eustace, I--I think I have--quite, thank you."
"Then Mr. Hooper is waiting to see you; kindly step this way."
She stepped that way, Mr. Gibb moving as stiffly as if he had a poker down his back. She found Mr. Hooper seated at a table which was littered with a number of papers and documents which were of a most portentous looking nature, over one of which he was bending with an air of earnest preoccupation which, it is to be feared, had been put on about thirty seconds before she had entered the room, and would be taken off in less than thirty seconds after she had left it.
"Miss Lindsay has come, sir." As Mr. Gibb made this announcement Mr. Hooper looked up with a start, which was very well done, as if nothing could have surprised him more; he rose, a little doubtfully, as if the professional cares of this world were almost more than he could bear.
"Miss Lindsay? Yes, yes, quite so; Miss Lindsay, of course. I hope, Miss Lindsay, I see you well."
"Quite well, thank you."
She ignored the hand which he extended, possibly in a moment of absence of mind, in a manner which seemed to him to be marked; he trusted Mr. Gibb had not noticed it before he left the room. He continued to be as professional in his manner as he knew how.
"Miss Lindsay--eh--might I--eh--ask you to take a seat?"