Her small grey eyes, scanning the visitor at the door, showed both surprise and deference.

The butler of the moat-house was not in the habit of mixing with the villagers, and by them he was accounted something of a personage.

He not only shone with the reflected glory of the big house, but was respected on his own merit as a "snug" man, who had saved money, and had a little property of his own.
"Is your husband at home, Mrs.Lumbe ?" he asked, in response to her mute glance of inquiry.

He spoke condescendingly, like a man who recognized the social gulf between them, but believed in being polite to the lower orders.
"Yes, he is in, Mr.Tufnell.Will you come inside ?" The butler rubbed his boots carefully on the doormat, and followed the woman down a narrow passage to a small sitting-room at the end of it, where a man was sitting, reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe.
"Robert," said the woman, "here is Mr.Tufnell to see you." The man looked up from his newspaper in some surprise, and got up to greet his visitor.

He was not in uniform, and his rough, ungainly figure and round red face revealed the countryman, but from the crown of his close-cropped bullet head to his thick-soled boots he looked like a rural policeman.