Like the good servant he was he searched the room with his eyes to see that all was well; his unobtrusive glance took note of Hornblower’s bottle and glass—Hornblower knew that Brown had taken in the fact that he had not yet finished his first glass of port; the knowledge would be of help in the exact timing of the bringing in of the coffee into the drawingroom when Hornblower should decide to move.

Faintly through the house came the jangle of the front door bell; now who was there who could possibly be ringing at the door at eight o’clock at night, on a night like this? It could not be a tenant—tenants would go to the side door if by any chance they had business at the house—and no caller was expected. Hornblower felt the urgings of curiosity, especially as the bell jangled a second time almost before its first janglings had died away. The diningroom windows and doors shook a trifle, indicating that the footman had opened the front door. Hornblower pricked up his ears; he imagined that he could hear voices in the outer hall.

“Go and see who that is, Brown,” he ordered.

“Yes, my lord.”

There had been many years when ‘Aye, aye, sir’ had been Brown’s reply to an order, but Brown never forgot that he was now a butler, and butler to a peer at that. He walked silently across the room—even while wondering who the caller might be Hornblower found himself as usual admiring the cut of Brown’s evening clothes. The perfection of cut, and yet with just that something about it to make it plain to the discriminating observer that they were a butler’s clothes and not a gentleman’s. Brown silently shut the door behind him, and Hornblower wished he had not, for in the interval while the door was open and Brown was passing through there had been a tantalizing moment when conversation could be heard—a loud, rather harsh voice making some sort of demands and the footman responding with unyielding deference.