Exactly what this performance meant, it would be difficult to say. Mr. Belcher, in his visits to the city, had frequented theaters and admired the villains of the plays he had seen represented. He had noticed figures upon the boards that reminded him of his own. His addresses to his mirror afforded him an opportunity to exercise his gifts of speech and action, and, at the same time, to give form to his self-gratulations. They amused him; they ministered to his preposterous vanity. He had no companions in the town, and the habit gave him a sense of society, and helped to pass away his evenings. At the close of his effort he sat down and lighted another cigar. Growing drowsy, he laid it down on a little stand at his side, and settled back in his chair for a nap. He had hardly shut his eyes when there came a rap upon his door.
"Please, sir," said a scared-looking maid, opening the door just wide enough to make room for her face.
"Well?" in a voice so sharp and harsh that the girl cringed.
"Please, sir, Miss Butterworth is at the door, and would like to see you."
Now, Miss Butterworth was the one person in all Sevenoaks who was not afraid of Robert Belcher. She had been at the public school with him when they were children; she had known every circumstance of his history; she was not dependent on him in any way, and she carried in her head an honest and fearless tongue. She was an itinerant tailoress, and having worked, first and last, in nearly every family in the town, she knew the circumstances of them all, and knew too well the connection of Robert Belcher with their troubles and reverses. In Mr. Belcher's present condition of self-complacency and somnolency, she was not a welcome visitor. Belligerent as he had been toward his own image in the mirror, he shrank from meeting Keziah Butterworth, for he knew instinctively that she had come with some burden of complaint.
"Come in," said Mr. Belcher to his servant, "and shut the door behind you."
The girl came in, shut the door, and waited, leaning against it.
"Go," said her master in a low tone, "and tell Mrs. Belcher that I am busy, and that she must choke her off. I can't see her to-night. I can't see her."
The girl retired, and soon afterward Mrs. Belcher came, and reported that she could do nothing with Miss Butterworth--that Miss Butterworth was determined to see him before she left the house.