BOOK THE THIRD - GARNERING
2. Chapter Ii - Very Ridiculous (continued)
However, he took affairs as coolly as it was in human nature to do,
and entertained himself with the facetious idea of the training
more than once. 'It wouldn't be bad,' he yawned at one time, 'to
give the waiter five shillings, and throw him.' At another time it
occurred to him, 'Or a fellow of about thirteen or fourteen stone
might be hired by the hour.' But these jests did not tell
materially on the afternoon, or his suspense; and, sooth to say,
they both lagged fearfully.
It was impossible, even before dinner, to avoid often walking about
in the pattern of the carpet, looking out of the window, listening
at the door for footsteps, and occasionally becoming rather hot
when any steps approached that room. But, after dinner, when the
day turned to twilight, and the twilight turned to night, and still
no communication was made to him, it began to be as he expressed
it, 'like the Holy Office and slow torture.' However, still true
to his conviction that indifference was the genuine high-breeding
(the only conviction he had), he seized this crisis as the
opportunity for ordering candles and a newspaper.
He had been trying in vain, for half an hour, to read this
newspaper, when the waiter appeared and said, at once mysteriously
and apologetically:
'Beg your pardon, sir. You're wanted, sir, if you please.'
A general recollection that this was the kind of thing the Police
said to the swell mob, caused Mr. Harthouse to ask the waiter in
return, with bristling indignation, what the Devil he meant by
'wanted'?
'Beg your pardon, sir. Young lady outside, sir, wishes to see
you.'
'Outside? Where?'
'Outside this door, sir.'
Giving the waiter to the personage before mentioned, as a block-
head duly qualified for that consignment, Mr. Harthouse hurried
into the gallery. A young woman whom he had never seen stood
there. Plainly dressed, very quiet, very pretty. As he conducted
her into the room and placed a chair for her, he observed, by the
light of the candles, that she was even prettier than he had at
first believed. Her face was innocent and youthful, and its
expression remarkably pleasant. She was not afraid of him, or in
any way disconcerted; she seemed to have her mind entirely
preoccupied with the occasion of her visit, and to have substituted
that consideration for herself.
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