Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/207

 Mr. Sefton, also unconscious of the secreted roll, opened his napkin with a debonair jerk to show that he was quite at his ease. The bread rose in the air. He made an unsuccessful clutch, touched but could not hold it, and watched with horror the errant roll hit Miss Wangle playfully on the side of the nose, just as she was beginning to tell Bowen about "the dear bishop."

Patricia bit her lip, Bowen bent solicitously over the angry Miss Wangle, whilst Mr. Bolton threatened to report Mr. Sefton to the Food Controller. Gustave created a diversion by arriving with the soup. His white cotton gloves, several sizes too large even for his hands, caused him great anxiety. Every spare moment during the evening he spent in clutching them at the wrists, just as they were on the point of slipping off. Nothing, however, could daunt his courage or mitigate his good-humour. For the first time in his life he was waiting upon a real lord, and from the circumstance he was extracting every ounce of satisfaction it possessed.

In serving Bowen his attitude was that of one self-convicted of unworthiness. Accustomed to the complaints and bickerings of a Bayswater boarding-house, Bowen's matter-of-fact motions of acceptance or refusal impressed him profoundly So this was how lords behaved. Nothing so impressed him as the little incident of the champagne.

At Galvin House it was the custom for the