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
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