"The men-servants are all in the cellars," said she perkily.
G.J. retorted with sardonic bitterness:
"And quite right, too. I'm glad someone's got some sense left."
Yet he did not really admire the men-servants for being in the
cellars. Somehow it seemed mean of them not to be ready to take any
risks, however unnecessary.
Robin, hiding her surprise and confusion in a nervous snigger, banged
the heavy door, and led him through the halls and up the staircases.
As she went forward she turned on electric lamps here and there in
advance, turning them off by the alternative switches after she had
passed them, so that in the vast, shadowed, echoing interior the two
appeared to be preceded by light and pursued by a tide of darkness.
She was mincingly feminine, and very conscious of the fact that G.J.
was a fine gentleman. In the afternoon, and again to-night--at first,
he had taken her for a mere girl; but as she halted under a lamp to
hold a door for him at the entrance to the upper stairs, he perceived
that it must have been a long time since she was a girl. Often had he
warned himself that the fashion of short skirts and revealed stockings
gave a deceiving youthfulness to the middle-aged, and yet nearly every
day he had to learn the lesson afresh.
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