Come Out of the Kitchen! A Romance

								

inheritance rather than by choice. He was a thin, erect man, with a
narrow head and that expression of mouth at once hard and subtle that
the Law writes on so many men's faces. His mind was excellently clear,
his manner reserved, and his invariable presupposition that all human
beings except himself were likely to make fools of themselves. He had,
however, immense respect for Mrs. Falkener's opinions on any subject
except law--on which he respected nobody's opinions but his own, least
of all those of judges; and he believed that nothing would so
effectively lighten his own responsibilities in regard to Crane as to
marry him to Mrs. Falkener's daughter, an idea in which Mrs. Falkener
cordially agreed.
"You must make a point of staying with him, Solon," she was now
murmuring into that gentleman's rather large ear, "if, as I fear, he
actually takes this house. You have never seen such an extraordinary
group of servants--except the butler. Do you suppose it could be a plot,
a blackmailing scheme of some sort? The cook--Well, my dear Solon, a
pocket Venus, a stage ingénue, with manicured nails! He was determined
to engage her from the first. It seems very unsafe to me. A bachelor of
Burton's means. You must stay by him, Solon. In fact," she added, "I
think we had better both stay by him. Poor boy, he has no idea of taking
care of himself."
"He can be very obstinate," said his lawyer. "But I fancy you exaggerate
the dangers. You are unaccustomed to any but the very highest type of
English servant. They are probably nothing worse than incompetent."
"Wait till you see the cook!" answered Mrs. Falkener portentously.
Tucker looked away over the darkening landscape.
"Dear me," he thought to himself. "What a mountain she makes of a
mole-hill! How every one exaggerates--except trained minds!"
In Tucker's opinion all trained minds were legal.

                                   II

ON the following Monday, late in the afternoon, the old Revelly house
was awaiting its new master. Already hunters, ponies, two-wheeled carts,
an extra motor, to say nothing of grooms, stable-boys, and a tremendous
head coachman, had arrived and were making the stable yards resound as
they had not done for seventy years. But they had nothing to do with the
household staff. They were all to be boarded by the coachman's wife who
was installed in the gardener's cottage.
The house, with its tall pillared portico and flat roofed wings, lost
its shabby air as the afternoon light grew dimmer, and by six o'clock,
when Crane's motor drew up before the door, it presented nothing but a
dignified and spacious mass to his admiring eyes.
No one but Tucker was with him. He had had some difficulty in avoiding
the pressing desire of the two Falkener ladies to be with him at the
start and help him, as they put it, "get everything in order." He had
displayed, however, a firmness that they had not expected. He had been