His glance at Rachel now became inquisitive, calculating, It seemed to be saying:  “One day I may be able to make use of this piece of goods.”  But there was a certain careless good-humour in it, too.  What he saw was a naive young maid, with agreeable features, and a fine, fresh complexion, and rather reddish hair. (He did not approve of the colour of the hair.) He found pleasure in regarding her, and in the perception that he had abashed her.  Yes, he liked to see her timid and downcast before him.  He was an old man, but like most old men—­such as statesmen—­who have lived constantly at the full pressure of following their noses, he was also a young man.  He creaked, but he was not gravely impaired.

“Is it Mr. Batchgrew?” Rachel softly murmured the unnecessary question, with one hand on the knob ready to open the sitting-room door.

He had flopped his stiff, flat-topped felt hat on the oak chest, and was taking off his overcoat.  He paused and, lifting his chin—­and his incredible white whiskers with it—­gazed at Rachel almost steadily for a couple of seconds.

“It is,” he said, as it were challengingly—­“it is, young miss.”

Then he finished removing his overcoat and thrust it roughly down on the hat.

Rachel blushed as she modestly turned the knob and pushed the door so that he might pass in front of her.

“Here’s Mr. Batchgrew, Mrs. Maldon,” she announced, feebly endeavouring to raise and clear her voice.

“Bless us!” The astonished exclamation of Mrs. Maldon was heard.

And Councillor Batchgrew, with his crimson shiny face, and the vermilion rims round his unsteady eyes, and his elephant ears, and the absurd streaming of his white whiskers, and his multitudinous noisiness, and his black kid gloves, strode half theatrically past her, sniffing.

To Rachel he was an object odious, almost obscene.  In truth, she had little mercy on old men in general, who as a class struck her as fussy, ridiculous, and repulsive.  And beyond all the old men she had ever seen, she disliked Councillor Batchgrew.  And about Councillor Batchgrew what she most detested was, perhaps strangely, his loose, wrinkled black kid gloves.  They were ordinary, harmless black kid gloves, but she counted them against him as a supreme offence.

“Conceited, self-conscious, horrid old brute!” she thought, discreetly drawing the door to, and then going into the kitchen.  “He’s interested in nothing and nobody but himself.”  She felt protective towards Mrs. Maldon, that simpleton who apparently could not see through a John Batchgrew!...  So Mrs. Maldon had been giving him good accounts of the new lady companion, had she!

VII

“Well, Lizzie Maldon,” said Councillor Batchgrew as he crossed the sitting-room, “how d’ye find yourself?...  Sings!” he went on, taking Mrs. Maldon’s hand with a certain negligence and at the same time fixing an unfriendly eye on the gas.