Seven o’clock had struck.

The gong at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, South Kensington, thundered under the vigorous strokes of the bow-legged German waiter. By one, by two, by three, the boarders trooped down to dinner, the more sensitive to noise stopping their ears as they descended.

The very deafest could not ignore that gong. Müller always attacked it suddenly, as if running amuck or possessed by a demon. It reverberated far and near, and echoed faintly to Gloucester Road Station. Boarders, arriving late, were seen to run when their ears caught the familiar sound.

8At the head of the central table in the fine dining-room, its three windows looking on the Gardens, sat the proprietress, Mrs. Wilcox. She was a bright-eyed, stout, florid woman of forty-five, dressed in black silk and a lace fichu secured by a cameo brooch. As she waited for her guests, she meditatively sharpened a carving knife.

8

By the sideboard stood her husband, Captain Wilcox, slender, dried-up, younger than his wife, and dominated by her. Where they met, and why they married, was a never-failing source of speculation in the house. It was asserted that Miss Tompkins took him in payment of a debt. Be that as it might, the mild, subdued little Captain was evidently a gentleman. He had been in a Lancer regiment, got into difficulties, and now at eight-and-thirty was a person of much less importance in his wife’s boarding-house than her imposing cook.

Though never supposed to act as master, the name and authority of Captain Wilcox were frequently evoked by Mrs. Wilcox when any unpleasant duty had to be done. He it was, for instance, who sternly insisted that no credit should be given. He stood out for the weekly settlement of accounts. 9He was responsible for certain persons receiving notice to quit. He made the unpopular rule that the drawing-room lights should be extinguished precisely at eleven. In a word, he was the Jorkins of the firm. For the rest, he held some small post in the City secured for him by his wife’s brother, helped daily with the carving, and paid for his own keep.

9

Besides the central table, there were round the room several smaller ones, accommodating from four to eight persons. To one of these, some men and women concerned in our story were making their way. First came Miss Augusta Semaphore, a tall, thin, and rather acid-looking woman of fifty-three. Close behind followed her sister, Miss Prudence, 

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