The girl in the check skirt scrutinized him with an air of pity and partial scorn. Her creed was more a man’s, florid and unimaginative. Life did not revolve for her, but hung, a mere sphere of prejudice, displaying one face alone to her uncompromising vision. After a moment’s thought she turned on her heel and offered to serve as herald in the parley.
“I will turn in and see,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Keep to the doorstep. You do not cross our threshold unless Phyl gives the word. Stand tight for ten minutes.”
Gabriel paced the gravel, morose and irritable. Possibly he had not prophesied so prosaic a prologue. Blanche Gusset was not a woman capable of moving to the rhythm of blank verse. The man realized from this one incident that the Cerberus of popular prejudice bayed to him from its kennel. There was to be no splendid gloom in this descent into hades, but vulgar glare and debasing discords.
Blanche Gusset came back to him very speedily. Her steel-tipped shoes clattered on the parquetry of the hall; she still carried her little switch. There was a compressed yet juvenile severity upon her florid face. It was evident that she felt strongly for her sister, and that her sympathies had ranged themselves against Gabriel in the moil.
“Listen,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Phyl will see you in the drawing-room; you know your way; but mind this—”
The man thrust back his pride and listened to her hectoring with a submissive calm.