What had I said exactly? I had said, "someone will call."
Either, then, "someone" means, in such shops, a man-servant; or the fact that I am a man-keeping animal is visible all over me.
I went on to wonder if, should he see Lidbetter, he would know that he belonged to me. Did I not only betray the fact that I kept a man, but also what kind of a man I kept?
Good old Lidbetter—what should I do without him? I wondered. How get through the day at all? How, to begin with, get up?
The morning tea, the warmed copy of The Times and The Mail (only Lidbetter would ever have thought of warming them), the intimation that the bath (also of the right temperature) was ready—how should I be thus looked after without Lidbetter?
And then the careful stropping of my razors. Without Lidbetter how could I get that done for me?
Without him I am sure I should never change my neck-tie till it was worn out, or get new shirts until mustard and cress had begun to sprout on the cuffs of the old ones, or have a crease down my trousers like Mr. Gerald Du Maurier, or go out with anything but a dusty overcoat and dustier hat.
But with Lidbetter...!
How do people get on without Lidbetters? I wondered. I suppose there are men who do not keep men and yet exist—men who can't say, "My man"? An odd experience.
I wondered how old he was by now—Lidbetter. Difficult to tell the age of that type, so discreet and equable. He might be anything from thirty to fifty.