of household
management was like inviting a duck to the pond. She stepped with a
queen-like dignity from the car. She was a commanding woman who swam
through life, borne up by her belief in her own infallibility. To be
just, she was very nearly infallible in matters of comfort and domestic
arrangement, and it was now many years since she had given attention to
anything else in the world. She was a thorough, able and awe-inspiring
woman of fifty-three.

Now she moved into Reed's office, with motor-veils and dusters floating
about her, like a solid wingless victory, and sat down in Randolph
Reed's own chair. (It was part of her philosophy never to interview a
social inferior until she herself was seated.) With a slight gesture of
her gloved hand, she indicated that the servants might be admitted to
her presence.

The door to the back office opened and the four candidates entered. The
first was the butler, a man slightly younger in years than most of
those careworn functionaries. He came forward with a quick, rapid step,
turning his feet out and walking on his toes. Only Mrs. Falkener
recognized that it was the walk of a perfect butler. She would have
engaged him on the spot, but when she noted that his hair was parted
from forehead back to the line of his collar and brushed slightly
forward in front of his ears, she experienced a feeling of envy and for
the first time thought with dissatisfaction of the paragon she had left
in charge of her own pantry at home.

She did indeed ask him a question or two, just to assure herself of his
English intonation, which, it must be owned, a residence in the South
had slightly influenced. And then with a start she passed on to the next
figure--the cook.

On her the eyes of her future employer had already been fixed since the
door first opened, and it would be hardly possible to exaggerate the
effect produced by her appearance. She might have stepped from a
Mid-Victorian Keepsake, or Book of Beauty. She should have worn
eternally a crinoline and a wreath of flowers; her soft gray-blue eyes,
her little bowed mouth, her slim throat, should have been the subject of
a perpetual steel engraving. She was small, and light of bone, and her
hands, crossed upon her check apron (for she was in her working dress),
were so little and soft that they seemed hardly capable of lifting a pot
or kettle.

Mrs. Falkener expressed the general sentiment exactly when she gasped:

"And you are the cook?