valet-de-pied

Updated: May 4, 2025

So he spoke, in the security of their intimate English, while the perpendicular imperturbable valet-de-pied, white-faced in the electric light, closed them in and then took his place on the box where the rigid liveried backs of the two men, presented through the glass, were like a protecting wall; such a guarantee of privacy as might come it occurred to Berridge's inexpugnable fancy from a vision of tall guards erect round Eastern seraglios.

Henry James - The Finer Grain