He sat very still, and waited. He had miles to walk before he could reach an inn; but food and a night’s lodging seemed unnecessary considerations in this strange hour.
She had asked him to wait until she should be alone; and he waited.
A motor came to the other side of the house; panted impatiently, for five minutes; then sped away into the distance.
He stood up and looked into the room.
It was empty. Fresh logs had been thrown upon the fire. The door into the hall was shut.
Even as he looked, it opened.
An elderly butler appeared, walked forward into the room, hesitated; then advanced to the garden door, touched a 50switch, and a couple of hanging lanterns shed a soft light over the veranda. He stood in the doorway, as if momentarily uncertain; then saw the chair and its occupant in the corner on his left, came over to it and delivered his message, in deferential tones, without lifting his eyes.
“Her ladyship bids me say, sir, that dinner will be served in half an hour. If you will follow me, I will show you to your room.”
“To my room?”
“Yes, sir. Her ladyship understood you would be able to dine and sleep.”
The butler moved to the door, held it wide, and waited. There was nothing for it, but to rise and enter.
So the man who had all his life looked in from without, now stepped over the threshold and found himself within.
Feeling keenly alive and yet as if moving in a vivid dream, Luke Sparrow walked 51across the room, and followed the butler into the brightly-lighted hall, and up a wide staircase.
On a table in the hall stood a box of library books, addressed with a brush, in very black ink. Before he realised what he was doing he had read the name—
Lady Tintagel.
He repeated it to himself, as he mounted the stairs. It awakened memories of Camelot. He had never heard of it as a family name; but it seemed in keeping with this romance of an unexpected visit, as an expected guest.
At the top of the stairs the butler paused to say: “Her ladyship desires that you will please yourself, sir, as to whether you dress or not.”
Luke smiled. His knapsack held a clean shirt, a razor, a comb, a toothbrush, and half a dozen handkerchiefs.
“I am doing a walking tour,” he said. 52“You might explain to her ladyship that I have nothing with me but bare necessaries in a small knapsack.”
The butler opened a door, switched on the light and stood aside that he might enter.
“You will find all you need here, sir. The door to the left leads into a bath-room. A gong will sound at eight. It is now half-past seven. If you should require anything more, will you be so good as to ring, sir?” He retired, closing the door softly behind him.
Luke looked around and laughed. He wondered what on earth he could find to ring for, which was not already there!
He walked over to the dressing-table, on which were silver-backed brushes, ivory razors, silver-topped bottles!
Laid out upon the bed was a complete suit of dress clothes.
If this was “Colin’s” room, he certainly did himself well! If these were “Colin’s” clothes, they certainly would not fit him!
Laughing again—he who never laughed—he 53turned to the bed, flung off his rough Norfolk jacket, and slipped on the smooth black coat with its silk lining. It fitted him perfectly; and he was fastidious about the cut of his clothes.
Should he?... Not he! He would never wear another man’s garments. He would never stand in another man’s shoes. If Lady Tintagel asked him to dine, she must have him as he was. If the lovely daughter looked askance at him, she must learn to understand that you don’t carry a dress suit in a knapsack.
But the bath? Yes, rather! That was quite another matter. His long sea swims had made him feel like a kipper.
What a bath-room! Every muscle relaxed in the steaming hot water. A bottle of fragrant aromatic stuff stood, temptingly handy. He poured it in, and luxuriated. “Colin” must feel a god, with all this at his command, whenever he came in fagged. He must descend on his admiring womenfolk, like a giant refreshed.
54A cold shower—and then he blessed heaven he had put a clean shirt in his knapsack.
“Colin’s” ivory-handled razors made shaving a positive pastime.
One moment of indecision, as he caught sight of the dress suit upon the bed. Strange that it should fit. He remembered the beautiful rooms downstairs. He would be decidedly out of the picture in his tweeds. He remembered the full-length mirror at the Mayor’s party. “He should have come as the Black Prince.” How he had enjoyed the remark! His first lesson in vanity. He smiled to think how often he had repeated it to himself, and postured in his shabby little suits. Do people realise how inordinately vain a small boy can be?... Should he? No! That was a fancy-dress masquerade; and so would this be. Whatever anybody said, whatever anybody thought, he must meet Lady Tintagel clad at least in the raiment of his own self-respect and independence. It was not as 55though he had arrived soaked through and had had to borrow dry things. He brushed his old tweeds vigorously with “Colin’s” silver-backed clothes-brush.
A gong boomed sonorously through the house.
As he walked down the stairs he was still thinking, with dream-like persistence, of the dress difficulty. “I shall say: ‘Excuse this rig. One travels light on a walking tour.’”
In the hall the butler waited.
“This way, sir.”