As to this point, and as to some minor topics, there are differences of opinion; but it is perfectly clear to the brilliant and distinguished circle, all round, that nobody is in question but Boodle and his retinue, and Buffy and his retinue.  These are the great actors for whom the stage is reserved.  A People there are, no doubt—­a certain large number of supernumeraries, who are to be occasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses, as on the theatrical stage; but Boodle and Buffy, their followers and families, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, are the born first-actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can appear upon the scene for ever and ever.

In this, too, there is perhaps more dandyism at Chesney Wold than the brilliant and distinguished circle will find good for itself in the long run.  For it is, even with the stillest and politest circles, as with the circle the necromancer draws around him—­very strange appearances may be seen in active motion outside.  With this difference, that being realities and not phantoms, there is the greater danger of their breaking in.

Chesney Wold is quite full anyhow, so full that a burning sense of injury arises in the breasts of ill-lodged ladies’-maids, and is not to be extinguished.  Only one room is empty.  It is a turret chamber of the third order of merit, plainly but comfortably furnished and having an old-fashioned business air.  It is Mr. Tulkinghorn’s room, and is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time.  He is not come yet.  It is his quiet habit to walk across the park from the village in fine weather, to drop into this room as if he had never been out of it since he was last seen there, to request a servant to inform Sir Leicester that he is arrived in case he should be wanted, and to appear ten minutes before dinner in the shadow of the library-door.  He sleeps in his turret with a complaining flag-staff over his head, and has some leads outside on which, any fine morning when he is down here, his black figure may be seen walking before breakfast like a larger species of rook.

Every day before dinner, my Lady looks for him in the dusk of the library, but he is not there.  Every day at dinner, my Lady glances down the table for the vacant place that would be waiting to receive him if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place.  Every night my Lady casually asks her maid, “Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?”

Every night the answer is, “No, my Lady, not yet.”

One night, while having her hair undressed, my Lady loses herself in deep thought after this reply until she sees her own brooding face in the opposite glass, and a pair of black eyes curiously observing her.

“Be so good as to attend,” says my Lady then, addressing the reflection of Hortense, “to your business.  You can contemplate your beauty at another time.”

“Pardon!  It was your Ladyship’s beauty.”