Five minutes--ten minutes--elapsed and I became greatly impatient. I
walked the floor; I stared from the window; I did everything I could
think of to pass away these unendurable moments of suspense with
creditable self-possession. But I failed utterly.
As the clock ticked off the quarter hour, and then the half, I grew not
only impatient but seriously alarmed, and flinging down the book I had
taken up as a last resort, stepped from the room, in the hope of coming
across some one in the hall whom I could interrogate.
But the house seemed strangely quiet, and when I had walked the full
length of the hall without encountering either maid or mistress, I
summoned up courage to return to the room I had left and ring the bell.
No answer, though I waited long for it.
Thinking that I had not pressed the button hard enough, I made a second
attempt, but again there was no answer.