One should have something at either end. May
I ring and see?" He rang while Mrs. Nettlepoint observed that with the
people they had in the house, an establishment reduced naturally at such
a moment to its simplest expression--they were burning up candle-ends and
there were no luxuries--she wouldn't answer for the service. The matter
ended in her leaving the room in quest of cordials with the female
domestic who had arrived in response to the bell and in whom Jasper's
appeal aroused no visible intelligence.
She remained away some time and I talked with her son, who was sociable
but desultory and kept moving over the place, always with his fan, as if
he were properly impatient. Sometimes he seated himself an instant on
the window-sill, and then I made him out in fact thoroughly
good-looking--a fine brown clean young athlete. He failed to tell me on
what special contingency his decision depended; he only alluded
familiarly to an expected telegram, and I saw he was probably fond at no
time of the trouble of explanations. His mother's absence was a sign
that when it might be a question of gratifying him she had grown used to
spare no pains, and I fancied her rummaging in some close storeroom,
among old preserve-pots, while the dull maid-servant held the candle
awry.
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