3. AUGUST THE TWENTY-FIFTH
Five days after the above-mentioned dialogue took place they went to
London, and, with scarcely a minute's pause, to the solicitors'
offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
They alighted opposite one of the characteristic entrances about the
place--a gate which was never, and could never be, closed, flanked
by lamp-standards carrying no lamp. Rust was the only active agent
to be seen there at this time of the day and year. The palings
along the front were rusted away at their base to the thinness of
wires, and the successive coats of paint, with which they were
overlaid in bygone days, had been completely undermined by the same
insidious canker, which lifted off the paint in flakes, leaving the
raw surface of the iron on palings, standards, and gate hinges, of a
staring blood-red.
But once inside the railings the picture changed. The court and
offices were a complete contrast to the grand ruin of the outwork
which enclosed them. Well-painted respectability extended over, within, and around the doorstep; and in the carefully swept yard not a particle of dust was visible.
Mr. Nyttleton, who had just come up from Margate, where he was
staying with his family, was standing at the top of his own
staircase as the pair ascended. He politely took them inside.
'Is there a comfortable room in which this young lady can sit during
our interview?' said Miss Aldclyffe.
It was rather a favourite habit of hers to make much of Cytherea
when they were out, and snub her for it afterwards when they got
home.
'Certainly--Mr. Tayling's.' Cytherea was shown into an inner room.
Social definitions are all made relatively: an absolute datum is
only imagined. The small gentry about Knapwater seemed unpractised
to Miss Aldclyffe, Miss Aldclyffe herself seemed unpractised to Mr. Nyttleton's experienced old eyes.
'Now then,' the lady said, when she was alone with the lawyer; 'what
is the result of our advertisement?'
It was late summer; the estate-agency, building, engineering, and
surveying worlds were dull. There were forty-five replies to the
advertisement.
Mr. Nyttleton spread them one by one before Miss Aldclyffe. 'You
will probably like to read some of them yourself, madam?' he said.
'Yes, certainly,' said she.
'I will not trouble you with those which are from persons manifestly
unfit at first sight,' he continued; and began selecting from the
heap twos and threes which he had marked, collecting others into his
hand.
'The man we want lies among these, if my judgment doesn't deceive
me, and from them it would be advisable to select a certain number
to be communicated with.'
'I should like to see every one--only just to glance them over
--exactly as they came,' she said suasively.
He looked as if he thought this a waste of his time, but dismissing
his sentiment unfolded each singly and laid it before her. As he
laid them out, it struck him that she studied them quite as rapidly
as he could spread them. He slyly glanced up from the outer corner
of his eye to hers, and noticed that all she did was look at the
name at the bottom of the letter, and then put the enclosure aside
without further ceremony. He thought this an odd way of inquiring
into the merits of forty-five men who at considerable trouble gave
in detail reasons why they believed themselves well qualified for a
certain post. She came to the final one, and put it down with the
rest.
Then the lady said that in her opinion it would be best to get as
many replies as they possibly could before selecting--'to give us a
wider choice. What do you think, Mr. Nyttleton?'
It seemed to him, he said, that a greater number than those they
already had would scarcely be necessary, and if they waited for
more, there would be this disadvantage attending it, that some of
those they now could command would possibly not be available.