As we reached the foot of the stairs, the manservant spoke for the first time. “The name, please?” When I had told him, he repeated my name, putting an interrogation mark after the “Miss?” not in contradistinction to “Mrs.” but to “Princess” or “Baroness,” as if he were not in the habit of announcing the untitled bourgeoisie. I took a dislike to him partly because of his tone and partly because of his impassive, coarse, cunning face in which I seemed to read condescension as if he had divined that until recently (or perhaps even now) I had been “in the service” like himself. I said sharply, “I am expected.”

“Certainly,” he said, a flicker of a smile adding, “Don’t be so naïve as to think I will take your word for it,” and he indicated a divan, wide as a bed and upholstered in yellow satin, where I might wait, and left me, sending his dignified shadow ahead of him between the misshapen parodies of the balustrades on the uncarpeted marble stairs.