Occasionally Mrs.
Tams listened for a footstep, ready discreetly to withdraw at the
slightest symptom on the stairs. Once when she did this, Rachel
murmured, weakly, "He won't--" and then lapsed into new weeping. And
after a little time Mrs. Tams departed.
VI
Mrs. Tams had decided to undertake an enterprise involving extreme
gallantry--surpassing the physical. She went downstairs and stood
outside the parlour door, which was not quite shut. Within the
parlour, or throne-room, existed a beautiful and superior being, full
of grace and authority, who belonged to a race quite different from
her own, who was beyond her comprehension, who commanded her and kept
her alive and paid money to her, who accepted her devotion casually
as a right, who treated her as a soft cushion between himself and
the drift and inconvenience of the world, and who occasionally, as a
supreme favour, caught her a smart slap on the back, which flattered
her to excess. She went into the throne-room if she was called
thither, or if she had cleansing or tidying work there; she spoke to
the superior being if he spoke to her. But she had never till then
conceived the breath-taking scheme of entering the throne-room for
a purpose of her own, and addressing the superior being without an
invitation to do so.
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