Rachel blushed as she modestly turned the knob and pushed the door so
that he might pass in front of her.

"Here's Mr. Batchgrew, Mrs. Maldon," she announced, feebly
endeavouring to raise and clear her voice.

"Bless us!" The astonished exclamation of Mrs. Maldon was heard.

And Councillor Batchgrew, with his crimson shiny face, and the
vermilion rims round his unsteady eyes, and his elephant ears, and
the absurd streaming of his white whiskers, and his multitudinous
noisiness, and his black kid gloves, strode half theatrically past
her, sniffing.

To Rachel he was an object odious, almost obscene. In truth, she
had little mercy on old men in general, who as a class struck her as
fussy, ridiculous, and repulsive. And beyond all the old men she had
ever seen, she disliked Councillor Batchgrew. And about Councillor
Batchgrew what she most detested was, perhaps strangely, his loose,
wrinkled black kid gloves. They were ordinary, harmless black kid
gloves, but she counted them against him as a supreme offence.

"Conceited, self-conscious, horrid old brute!" she thought, discreetly
drawing the door to, and then going into the kitchen. "He's interested
in nothing and nobody but himself." She felt protective towards Mrs.
Maldon, that simpleton who apparently could not see through a John
Batchgrew!... So Mrs. Maldon had been giving him good accounts of the
new lady companion, had she!