This outrageous insinuation stung the silent servant into speech. “I’m incapable of the action, sir!” he answered indignantly; “the woman was reading a story.”
Benjulia bent his head, as if in acknowledgment of a highly satisfactory explanation. “Oh? reading a story? People who read stories are said to have excitable brains. Should you call the cook excitable?”
“I should, sir! Most cooks are excitable. They say it’s the kitchen fire.”
“Do they? You can go now. Don’t hurry the cook—I’ll wait.”
He waited, apparently following some new train of thought which highly diverted him. Ten minutes passed—then a quarter of an hour then another five minutes. When the servant returned with the dinner, the master’s private reflections continued to amuse him: his thin lips were still widening grimly, distended by his formidable smile.
On being carved, the mutton proved to be underdone. At other times, this was an unpardonable crime in Benjulia’s domestic code of laws. All he said now was, “Take it away.” He dined on potatoes, and bread and cheese. When he had done, he was rather more amiable than ever. He said, “Ask the cook to come and see me!”
The cook presented herself, with one hand on her palpitating heart, and the other holding her handkerchief to her eyes.
“What are you crying about?” Benjulia inquired; “I haven’t scolded you, have I?” The cook began an apology; the doctor pointed to a chair. “Sit down, and recover yourself.” The cook sat down, faintly smiling through her tears. This otherwise incomprehensible reception of a person who had kept the dinner waiting twenty minutes, and who had not done the mutton properly even then (taken in connection with the master’s complimentary inquiries, reported downstairs by the footman), could bear but one interpretation. It wasn’t every woman who had her beautiful hair, and her rosy complexion. Why had she not thought of going upstairs first, just to see whether she looked her best in the glass? Would he begin by making a confession? or would he begin by kissing her?
He began by lighting his pipe. For a while he smoked placidly with his eye on the cook. “I hear you have been reading a story,” he resumed. “What is the name of it?”
“‘Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded,’ sir.”