The servants were at first doubtful as to the propriety of admitting him.  They said their master was at home, but they did not know if he could receive visitors.

“He won’t refuse to see me,” said Dale confidently.  “Tell him it’s Mr. Dale of Rodchurch, and won’t detain him two minutes.”

“Very good,” said the principal servant gravely.  “But I can’t disturb him if he’s resting.”

“Oh, if he’s resting,” said Dale, “I’ll wait.  I’ll make my time his time—­whether convenient to me or not.”  Then they led him down a passage, past a cloak-room and a lavatory, to a small room right at the back of the house.

Perhaps the room seemed small only by reason of its great height.  Dale, waiting patiently, examined his surroundings with curious interest.  There were two old-fashioned writing-tables—­one looking as if it was never used, and the other looking busy and homelike, with a cabinet full of every conceivable sort of notepaper, trays full of pens, and little candles to be lighted when one desired to affix seals.  On a roundabout conveniently near there were books of reference that included the current volume of the London Post Office Directory.  The sofas and chairs were upholstered in dark green leather, the chimney-piece was of carved marble, a few ancient and rather dismal pictures hung almost out of sight on the walls; and generally, the room would have produced an impression of a repellent and ungenial kind of pomp, if it had not been for the extremely human note struck by the large assortment of photographs.

These were dabbed about everywhere—­in panels above the chair rail, in screens and silver frames, on the writing-table, and loose and unframed on the mantel-shelf.  They were nearly all portraits of women—­and some nice attractive bits among them, as Dale thought; young and cheeky ones, too, that he guessed were actresses and not nieces or cousins.  He smiled tolerantly.  These photographs brought to his mind a nearly forgotten fancy of his own, together with echoes of the local gossip.  Round Rodchurch the talk ran that the Right Honorable gentleman was still a rare one for the ladies.  “And why not?” thought Dale.  A childless old widower may keep up that sort of game as long as he likes, or as long as he can, without wounding any one’s feeling.  It wasn’t as if her ladyship had been still alive.

“Sir, I hope I have not disturbed you; but I couldn’t be easy till I’d cordially and heartily thanked you.”  Mr. Barradine had come in, and Dale fired off his brief set speeches.  But instinct almost immediately told him that once more Mavis had been right and he wrong.  Mr. Barradine was not expecting or desiring a personal call.

“Not worth mentioning.  Nothing at all.”  He said these things courteously, but there was a coldness in his tone that quite froze the visitor.  He seemed to be saying really:  “Now look here, I have had quite enough bother about you; and please don’t let me have any more of it.”