Mrs. Grose’s large face showed me, at this, for the first time, the
far-away faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: I somehow made
out in it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her and
that was as yet quite obscure to me. It comes back to me that I thought
instantly of this as something I could get from her; and I felt it to
be connected with the desire she presently showed to know more. “When
was it--on the tower?”
“About the middle of the month. At this same hour.”
“Almost at dark,” said Mrs. Grose.
“Oh no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you.”
“Then how did he get in?”
“And how did he get out?” I laughed. “I had no opportunity to ask
him! This evening, you see,” I pursued, “he has not been able to
get in.”
“He only peeps?”
“I hope it will be confined to that!” She had now let go my hand;
she turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out:
“Go to church. Good-bye. I must watch.”
Slowly she faced me again. “Do you fear for them?”
We met in another long look. “Don’t _you_?” Instead of answering
she came nearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to
the glass. “You see how he could see,” I meanwhile went on.
She didn’t move. “How long was he here?”
“Till I came out. I came to meet him.”
Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in her
face. “_I_ couldn’t have come out.”
“Neither could I!” I laughed again. “But I did come. I have my
duty.”
“So have I mine,” she replied; after which she added: “What is
he like?”
“I’ve been dying to tell you. But he’s like nobody.”
“Nobody?” she echoed.
“He has no hat.” Then seeing in her face that she already, in
this, with a deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, I quickly added
stroke to stroke. “He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and
a pale face, long in shape, with straight, good features and little,
rather queer whiskers that are as red as his hair. His eyebrows are,
somehow, darker; they look particularly arched and as if they might
move a good deal. His eyes are sharp, strange--awfully; but I only know
clearly that they’re rather small and very fixed. His mouth’s wide,
and his lips are thin, and except for his little whiskers he’s quite
clean-shaven. He gives me a sort of sense of looking like an actor.”
“An actor!” It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than
Mrs. Grose at that moment.
“I’ve never seen one, but so I suppose them. He’s tall, active,
erect,” I continued, “but never--no, never!--a gentleman.”
My companion’s face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started
and her mild mouth gaped. “A gentleman?” she gasped, confounded,
stupefied: “a gentleman _he_?”
“You know him then?”
She visibly tried to hold herself. “But he _is_ handsome?”