, that she was waiting for him in her own
drawing-room, and ready to receive him.

Now, how did To-to contrive to tell him that? Very easily, in truth.
To-to had a keen, healthy curiosity. He was always anxious to know what
was going on. The moment he heard the bell ring at the great door he
wanted to know who was coming in, and he ran down the stairs and stood
in the hall to find out. When the door was opened, and the visitor
appeared, To-to instantly made up his mind. If it was an unfamiliar
figure, To-to considered it an introduction in which he had no manner of
interest, and, without waiting one second, he scampered back to rejoin
his mistress, and try to explain to her that there was some very
uninteresting man or woman coming to call on her. But if it was somebody
he knew, and whom he knew that his mistress knew, then there were two
courses open to him. If Helena was not in her sitting room, To-to
welcomed the visitor in the most friendly and hospitable way, and then
fell into the background, and took no further notice, but ranged the
premises carelessly and on his own account. If, however, his mistress
were in her drawing room, then To-to invariably preceded the visitor up
the stairs, going in front even of the footman, and ushered the
new-comer into my lady's chamber. The process of reasoning on To-to's
part must have been somewhat after this fashion. 'My business is to
announce my lady's friends, the people whom I, with my exquisite
intelligence, know to be people whom she wants to see. If I know that
she is in her drawing-room ready to see them, then, of course, it is my
duty and my pleasure to go before, and announce them. But if I know,
having just been there, that she is not yet there, then I have no
function to perform. It is the business of some other creature--her maid
very likely--to receive the news from the footman that someone is
waiting to see her. That is a complex process with which I have nothing
to do.' The favoured visitor, therefore--the visitor, that is to say,
whom To-to favoured, believing him or her to be favoured by To-to's
mistress--had to pass through what may be called two portals, or
ordeals. First, he had to ask of the servant whether Miss Langley was at
home. Being informed that she was at home, then it depended on To-to to
let the visitor know whether Miss Langley was actually in her
drawing-room waiting to receive him, or whether he was to be shown into
the drawing-room and told t