And she pulled out of her handbag a photograph, not of Leek, but of Priam Farll.  It was an unmounted print of a negative which he and Leek had taken together for the purposes of a pose in a picture, and it had decidedly a distinguished appearance.  But why should Leek dispatch photographs of his master to strange ladies introduced through a matrimonial agency?  Priam Farll could not imagine—­unless it was from sheer unscrupulous, careless bounce.

She gazed at the portrait with obvious joy.

“Now, candidly, don’t you think it’s very, very good?” she demanded.

“I suppose it is,” he agreed.  He would probably have given two hundred pounds for the courage to explain to her in a few well-chosen words that there had been a vast mistake, a huge impulsive indiscretion.  But two hundred thousand pounds would not have bought that courage.

“I love it,” she ejaculated fervently—­with heat, and yet so nicely!  And she returned the photograph to her little bag.

She lowered her voice.

“You haven’t told me whether you were ever married.  I’ve been waiting for that.”

He blushed.  She was disconcertingly personal.

“No,” he said.

“And you’ve always lived like that, alone like; no home; travelling about; no one to look after you, properly?” There was distress in her voice.

He nodded.  “One gets accustomed to it.”

“Oh yes,” she said.  “I can understand that.”

“No responsibilities,” he added.

“No.  I can understand all that.”  Then she hesitated.  “But I do feel so sorry for you... all these years!”

And her eyes were moist, and her tone was so sincere that Priam Farll found it quite remarkably affecting.  Of course she was talking about Henry Leek, the humble valet, and not about Leek’s illustrious master.  But Priam saw no difference between his lot and that of Leek.  He felt that there was no essential difference, and that, despite Leek’s multiple perfections as a valet, he never had been looked after—­properly.  Her voice made him feel just as sorry for himself as she was sorry for him; it made him feel that she had a kind heart, and that a kind heart was the only thing on earth that really mattered.  Ah!  If Lady Sophia Entwistle had spoken to him in such accents...!

The bill came.  It was so small that he was ashamed to pay it.  The suppression of gratuities enabled the monarch of this bevelled palace to offer a complete dinner for about the same price as a thimbleful of tea and ten drachms of cake a few yards away.  Happily the monarch, foreseeing his shame, had arranged a peculiar method of payment through a little hole, where the receiver could see nothing but his blushing hands.  As for the conjurers in evening dress, they apparently never soiled themselves by contact with specie.

Outside on the pavement, he was at a loss what to do.  You see, he was entirely unfamiliar with Mrs. Challice’s code of etiquette.