Page:The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916).pdf/176

152 "Your bath, sir; hot or cold in the morning, sir?"

"Hot," Eaton answered.

"Of course, sir; I'd forgotten you'd just come from the Orient, sir. Do you wish anything first, sir?"

"Anything?"

"Anything to drink, sir."

"Oh, no."

The man again prepared the bath. When Eaton returned to his dressing-room, he found the servant awaiting him with shaving mug, razor and apron. The man shaved him and trimmed his hair.

"I shall tell them to bring breakfast up, sir; or will you go down?" the man asked then.

Eaton considered. The manners of servants are modeled on the feelings of their masters, and the man's deference told plainly that, although Eaton might be a prisoner, he was not to be treated openly as such.

"I think I can go down," Eaton replied, when the man had finished dressing him. He found the hall and the rooms below bright and open but unoccupied; a servant showed him to a blue Delft breakfast room to the east, where a fire was burning in an old-fashioned Dutch fireplace. A cloth was spread on the table, but no places were set; a number of covered dishes, steaming above electric discs, were on the sideboard. The servant in attendance there took covers off these dishes as Eaton approached; he chose his breakfast and sat down, the man laying one place for him. This manner of serving gave Eaton no hint as to how many others were in the house or might be expected to breakfast. He had half finished his bacon and greens before any one else appeared.

This was a tall, carefully dressed man of more than