“Good gracious! there was a time when Wiggles would not have taken such trouble to give me notice.”
“It isn’t that he wishes to give notice, my lord;—I don’t know how to put it, nor does Wiggles. He wants, I think, to see his old people before they die.”
“My poor Temple, Wiggles is like many others who have suddenly seen life as it is, and not as it had been made for him. We also are now able to see things as they are. We see that if Wiggles’s rooms in his mews are too small and dingy for him and his family, our rooms here are too spacious for us. But very soon we shall make it all even.”
“I can’t imagine how Lionel can be such a fool as to speak to his valet like that,” whispered Mrs Archibald to Sinclair; “they want a good squashing, these people.”
“Tell Wiggles to pack up!—ha! ha! ha! I forgot—he has nothing to pack up. Let him go back to his own village. Rural life is dying out, and we want to relieve the congestion of our capital, and bring life and happiness into the apathetic provinces.—We must give back the land!”
“Will you give this cup to your master, Temple?” asked Gwen, handing the teacup to the valet with the grace with which she would have addressed a Peer of the Realm.
“One moment,” said Lionel, as Temple was preparing to leave the room. “I have often, since the storm, wanted to ask you how it was you were so much more respectful than you used to be? I used to wish you frequently at the bottom of the sea, with your impertinent and supercilious manners. Why have you altered?”
“I am afraid, Mrs Archibald, you have come in at a wrong time, and your delicate feelings will be hurt,” said Sinclair, bowing to the diaphanous vision of past smartness, to whom he handed a plate of sandwiches.
“_A la guerre comme à la guerre_, my dear fellow; I have made up my mind to the worst.”
“It would be easier to explain my past behaviour, my lord, than to account for my present manner. I have been for many years in your lordship’s service, and I only now realise how little we understood each other.”
“Had you no proper respect for your masters?” This was Mrs Archibald, who between two mouthfuls felt it her duty to bring the discussion down to a proper level. Temple hung his head, and twisted his fingers. One could hear the monotonous tick-tack of the empire clock.