‘It’s all right, Frank,’ said Millicent, turning her smiling face to him. ‘We may go over the Hall. Mr Tompkinson is not here at present.’
‘Please, walk in,’ said the housekeeper, dropping a courtesy.
Millicent did so; and Frank followed her, sulkily. He did not approve of the proceedings. As his wife had forced him to the house, he had determined to send his card up to Mr Tompkinson, trusting that his former connection with the place would excuse the liberty he was taking. But he did not like this going behind the man’s back, and felt sure that Millicent had been smoothing the way with a bribe.
‘That’s the drawing-room—the dining-room—library—billiard-room,’ said the housekeeper, jerking her finger at the doors in succession. ‘Please, walk through them; and ring when you’d like to go up-stairs and see the view.’
Therewith the woman vanished, after giving Millicent a knowing look, which Frank felt sure spoke of wholesale bribery.
‘I say, Millicent,’ said Frank, ‘we can’t go walking about a man’s house alone, in this fashion.’
‘My dear,’ said Millicent very seriously, ‘I pledged my honour we would pocket nothing.’ Then she broke into an hysterical little laugh; and Frank wondered what had come to his wife.
‘Let us go to the drawing-room first,’ she said, recovering her gravity, and opening the door pointed out by the housekeeper.
Frank passed through the doorway, and for a moment could think of nothing but how he should keep himself from quite breaking down. The room looked almost the same as when he last entered it—the same as he had known it from his earliest days. Every chair and table the same, or apparently so. Then he remembered that the purchaser of the house had also bought nearly all the household furniture. At the time, he was glad to think the old place would not be dismantled; now he regretted it had not been. The presence of the well-remembered Lares and Penates left the old home unchanged in all—save that it was no longer his home. There was the very stool on which as a boy he used to sit at his mother’s feet; there was the wonderful Japanese cabinet, with dozens of little lackered drawers, which used to be opened now and again as a great treat to him. And here was he standing in the middle of these old household gods, by permission of another man’s servant. He wished he had been firm, and not yielded to Millicent’s whim.