An habitual resident in London who is gifted with a keen faculty of hearing and observation, will soon learn to know instinctively the various characteristics of the people who call upon him, by the particular manner in which each one handles his door-bell or knocker. He will recognize the timid from the bold, the modest from the arrogant, the meditative thinker from the bustling man of fashion, the familiar friend from the formal acquaintance.
Every individual's method of announcing his or her arrival to the household is distinctly different,--and Villiers, who studied a little of everything, had not failed to take note of the curiously diversified degrees of single and double rapping by means of which his visitors sought admittance to his abode. In fact, he rather prided himself on being able to guess with almost invariable correctness what special type of man or woman was at his door, provided he could hear the whole diapason of their knock from beginning to end. When he was shut in his "den," however, the sounds were muffled by distance, and he could form no just judgment,--sometimes, indeed, he did not hear them at all, especially if he happened to be playing his 'cello at the time.
So that this morning he was considerably startled, when, having finished his letter to the Duchess de la Santoisie, a long and persistent rat-tat-tatting echoed noisily through the house, like the smart, quick blows of a carpenter's hammer--a species of knock that was entirely unfamiliar to him, and that, while so emphatic in character, suggested to his mind neither friend nor foe. He laid down his pen, listened and waited. In a minute or two his servant entered the room.
"If you please, sir, a lady to see Mr. Alwyn. Shall I show her up?"
Villiers rose slowly out of his chair, and stood eyeing his man in blank bewilderment.
"A LADY! ... To see Mr. Alwyn!"--he repeated, his thoughts instantly reverting to his friend's vaguely hinted love-affair,-- "What name?"
"She gives no name, sir. She says it isn't needed,--Mr. Alwyn will know who she is."
"Mr. Alwyn will know who she is, will he?" murmured Villiers dubiously.--"What is she like? Young and pretty?"
Over the man-servant's staid countenance came the glimmer of a demure, respectful smile.
"Oh no, sir,--not young, sir! A person about fifty, I should say."
This was mystifying. A person about fifty! Who could she be? Villiers hastily considered,--there must be some mistake, he thought,--at any rate, he would see the unknown intruder himself first, and find out what her business was, before breaking in upon Alwyn's peaceful studies upstairs.