He came nearer and peered more closely at me and I dismissed my fear; for I could see the discovery of his mistake dawning upon him. His pallid face, on which the pallor was the more noticeable, seeing that his plump features were those of a man with whom the world went well, regained some of its lost colour, and a sigh of relief passed his lips. But this feeling was only momentary. The joy of escape from whatever blow he had thought imminent gave place to his previous state of expectancy of something.
"You took me for another person," I said, preparing to pass on. At that moment I could have sworn--I would have given one hundred to one twice over--that he was going to say yes. To my immense astonishment, he did not. With a visible effort he said "No!"
"Eh! What?" I exclaimed. I had taken a step or two.
"No, sir."
"Then what is it?" I said. "What do you want, my good fellow?"
Watching his shuffling indeterminate manner I wondered if he were sane. His next answer reassured me. There was an almost desperate deliberation in his manner. "My master wishes to see you, sir," was what he said, "if you will kindly walk in for five minutes."
I should have replied, "Who is your master?" if I had been wise; or cried, "Nonsense!" and gone my way. But often the mind when it is spurred by an emergency over-runs the more obvious course to adopt a worse. It was possible that one of my intimates had taken the house, and said in his butler's presence that he wished to see me. Thinking of that I answered, "Are you sure? Have you not made a mistake, my man?"
With a sullenness that was new in him, he said, No, he had not. Would I please to walk in? He stepped forward as he spoke, and induced me by a kind of urgency to enter the house, taking from me with the ease of a trained servant my hat, coat, and muffler. Finding himself in the course of his duties he gained composure; while I, being thus treated, lost my sense of the strangeness of the proceeding, and only awoke to a full consciousness of my position when he had shut the door behind us and was putting up the chain.
Then I confess I looked round, alarmed at my easiness. But I found the hall spacious, lofty, and dark-panelled, the ordinary hall of an old London house. The big fireplace was filled with plants in flower. There were rugs on the floor and a number of chairs with painted crests on the backs, and in a corner was an old sedan chair, its poles upright against the wall.
No other servants were visible. But apart from this all was in order, all was quiet, and the notion of violence was manifestly absurd.