“You have been with Mr. Peters some time, Mr. Marson?”
“Eh? Oh! Oh, no only since last Wednesday.”
“Indeed! Might I inquire whom you assisted before that?”
For a moment Ashe did what he would not have believed himself capable of doing–regretted that the topic of feet was no longer under discussion. The question placed him in an awkward position. If he lied and credited himself with a lengthy experience as a valet, he risked exposing himself. If he told the truth and confessed that this was his maiden effort in the capacity of gentleman’s gentleman, what would the butler think? There were objections to each course, but to tell the truth was the easier of the two; so he told it.
“Your first situation?” said Mr. Beach. “Indeed!”
“I was–er–doing something else before I met Mr. Peters,” said Ashe.
Mr. Beach was too well-bred to be inquisitive, but his eyebrows were not.
“Ah!” he said. “?” cried his eyebrows. “?–?–?”
Ashe ignored the eyebrows.
“Something different,” he said.
There was an awkward silence. Ashe appreciated its awkwardness. He was conscious of a grievance against Mr. Peters. Why could not Mr. Peters have brought him down here as his secretary? To be sure, he had advanced some objection to that course in their conversation at the offices of Mainprice, Mainprice & Boole; but merely a silly, far-fetched objection. He wished he had had the sense to fight the point while there was time; but at the moment when they were arranging plans he had been rather tickled by the thought of becoming a valet. The notion had a pleasing musical-comedy touch about it. Why had he not foreseen the complications that must ensue? He could tell by the look on his face that this confounded butler was waiting for him to give a full explanation. What would he think if he withheld it? He would probably suppose that Ashe had been in prison.
Well, there was nothing to be done about it. If Beach was suspicious, he must remain suspicious. Fortunately the suspicions of a butler do not matter much.
Mr. Beach’s eyebrows were still mutely urging him to reveal all, but Ashe directed his gaze at that portion of the room which Mr. Beach did not fill. He would be hanged if he was going to let himself be hypnotized by a pair of eyebrows into incriminating himself! He glared stolidly at the pattern of the wallpaper, which represented a number of birds of an unknown species seated on a corresponding number of exotic shrubs.
The silence was growing oppressive. Somebody had to break it soon. And as Mr. Beach was still confining himself to the language of the eyebrow and apparently intended to fight it out on that line if it took all Summer, Ashe himself broke it.
It seemed to him as he reconstructed the scene in bed that night that Providence must have suggested the subject to Mr. Peters’ indigestion; for the mere mention of his employer’s sufferings acted like magic on the butler.
“I might have had better luck while I was looking for a place,” said Ashe. “I dare say you know how bad-tempered Mr. Peters is. He is dyspeptic.”
“So,” responded Mr. Beach, “I have been informed.” He brooded for a space. “I, too,” he proceeded, “suffer from my stomach. I have a weak stomach. The lining of my stomach is not what I could wish the lining of my stomach to be.”
“Tell me,” said Ashe gratefully, leaning forward in an attitude of attention, “all about the lining of your stomach.”
It was a quarter of an hour later when Mr. Beach was checked in his discourse by the chiming of the little clock on the mantelpiece. He turned round and gazed at it with surprise not unmixed with displeasure.
“So late?” he said. “I shall have to be going about my duties. And you, also, Mr. Marson, if I may make the suggestion. No doubt Mr. Peters will be wishing to have your assistance in preparing for dinner. If you go along the passage outside you will come to the door that separates our portion of the house from the other. I must beg you to excuse me. I have to go to the cellar.”