The Duke had not moved.
"And the 61st line, doctor?"
"Damaged, your grace. A conventional invocation. Long life to the master of the house."
"Read me the goat."
Dr. Sutherby turned a leaf, found the place, and smiled at the room.
"The steward was outraged," he read. "The scribe cut the goat twice."
The benches laughed. It was a good line.
"Outraged," said the Duke.
"A little license in translation, your grace."
"It is not on the stone," said Hester.
She had not decided to speak. She was simply standing away from the wall.
The room turned 40 heads at once and looked at the housemaid.
"It is not a word, doctor. The scribe cut a goat, and then cut it again. I said outraged on the 11th evening because it looked outraged. I wrote it in the margin of my copy book."
Nobody spoke.
Dr. Sutherby's smile stood where it was, and the man behind it slipped out.
"She is a housemaid," he said. "She cannot read."
"Mrs. Larkin," said the Duke.
He had risen.
"Will you read the 61st line?"
She crossed the room. Every bench watched her go. The floorboards took her weight one at a time.
She stopped before the plinth and laid the copy book on the granite, open at the last page. Her finger hovered above the last line, cut small and very clean at the foot of the stone.
"It is an instruction," said Hester. "From the steward to the house."
She read it aloud in a level voice.
"Let the hall be warm before the master wakes. Feed those who clean it before those who are admired."
The silence had a weight to it.
Somewhere at the back, a man cleared his throat, and stopped, and did not begin again. Miss Delamir lowered her fan.
There was no sun in it. There were no kings. There were 60 loaves, and a goat, and a house that had been meant to be kind.
"That," said the Duke, "is the stone."
He said it to the room. He did not look away from her.
Then he stepped forward, took his own chair by its back, and set it beside the plinth.
"Mrs. Larkin, please sit."
A duke stood in his own house while a housemaid sat down in his chair. 40 gentlemen watched him do it.
She sat. She did not tell them what it cost her to look calm.
"Dr. Sutherby's reading is her reading," said the Duke. "He has been using it since Friday. It will be published in her name. The society may satisfy itself as it likes."