the last twenty years: the congratulations and good wishes, or whatever
they were, must have been spoken between the three in the parlour before
dinner; and they spoke now of harmless usual things--news of the
countryside and tales from Derby; gossip of affairs of State; of her
Grace, who, in a manner unthinkable, even by now dominated the
imagination of England. None of these three had ever seen her; the
squire had been to London but once in his life, his two guests never.
Yet they talked of her, of her state-craft, of her romanticism; they
told little tales, one to the other, as if she lived in the county town.
All this, then, was harmless enough. Religion was not mentioned in the
hearing of the servants, neither the old nor the new; they talked, all
three of them, and the squire loudest of all, though with pauses of
pregnant silence, of such things as children might have heard without
dismay.

Yet to the servants who came and went, it was as if their master were
another man altogether, and his hall some unknown place. There was no
blessing of himself before meat; he said something, indeed, before he
sat down, but it was unintelligible, and he made no movement with his
hand. But it was deeper than this ... and his men who had served him for
ten or fifteen years looked on him as upon a stranger or a changeling.




CHAPTER VII


I