By the way, there was a little pile of tin boxes in a small unfurnished room upstairs, next to Molly’s bedroom, of which she kept the key.  She had had no time to look at them yet.  Some of them came from Florence, and two or three from her own flat.  They were of all shapes and sizes, and piled one on another.  But from the moment when Molly turned that very ordinary key in the lock of the unfurnished dressing-room she never let her thoughts dwell for long on the possible delusions of delirium.  Her mind had entered into another phase in which it was of supreme importance to think only of the details of each day as they came before her.

CHAPTER XXV

MOLLY AT COURT

If any of us, going to dress quietly in an ordinary bedroom, were told:  “It is the last time you will have just that amount of comfort, that degree of luxury, to which you have been accustomed; it is the last time you will have your evening clothes put out for you; the last time your things will be brushed; the last time hot water will be brought to your room; the last time that your dressing-gown will have come out of the cupboard without your taking it out”—­we might have an odd mixture of sensations.  We might be very sad—­ridiculously sad—­and yet have a sense of being braced, a whiff of open air in the mental atmosphere.

Edmund Grosse did not expect in future to draw his own hot water, or put out his own dressing-gown, but he did know that he had come to the last night of having a valet of his own, the last night in which the perfect Dawkins, who had been with him ten years, would do him perfect bodily service.  Everything to-night was done in the most punctilious manner, and it seemed appropriate that this last night should be a full-dress affair.

Sir Edmund was going to Court (the first Court held in May), and his deputy lieutenant’s uniform was laid on the bed.  Edmund might not have taken the trouble to go, but a kindly message from a very high place as to his troubles had made him feel it a more gracious response to do so.  The valet was a trifle distant, if any shade of manner could have been detected in his deferential attitude towards his master.  Dawkins was not pleased with Sir Edmund; he felt that his ten years of service had been based on a delusion; he had not intended to be valet to a ruined man.  Happily he had been careful.  He had not trusted blindly to Providence, and, with a rich result from enormous wages and perquisites, and an excellent character, he could face the world with his head high, whereas Sir Edmund—­well, Sir Edmund’s position was very different.  Sir Edmund had let himself be deceived outrageously, and what was the result?

Edmund was as particular as usual about every detail of his appearance.  It would have been an education to a young valet to have seen the ruined man dressed that evening.