Part 11 (2/2)

”I can't forget that you're an officer, sir,” said Allenby, wretchedly. ”It's not right: think of the regiment. And Miss Norah.

Won't you let me 'elp sir?”

”You can clean the paint, Allenby,” said Norah, taking pity on his distressed face. ”But there's really no need to keep you.”

”If you'd only not mind telling any of them at the 'ouse what I was doing,” said the butler anxiously. ”It 'ud undermine me position.

There's that Miss de Lisle, now--she looks down on everybody enough without knowin' I was doin' any job like this.”

”She shall never know,” said Jim tragically, waving a blacklead brush.

”Now I'm off to do the dining-room grate. If you're deadly anxious to work, Allenby, you could wash this floor--couldn't he, Norah?”

”Thanks very much, sir,” said Allenby gratefully, ”I'll leave this place all right--just shut the door, sir, and don't you bother about it any more.”

”However did you dare, Jim?” breathed Norah, as the cleaning party moved towards the dining-room. ”Do you think a butler ever washed a floor before?”

”Can't say,” said Jim easily. ”I'm regarding him more as a sergeant than a butler, for the moment--not that I can remember seeing a sergeant wash a floor, either. But he seemed anxious to help, so why not let him? It won't hurt him; he's getting disgracefully fat. And there's plenty to do.”

”Heaps,” said Wally cheerily. ”Where's that floor-polish, Nor? These boards want a rub. What are you going to do?”

”Polish bra.s.s,” said Norah, beginning on a window-catch. ”When I grow up I think I'll be an architect, and then I'll make the sort of house that women will care to live in.”

”What sort's that?” asked Jim.

”I don't know what the outside will be like. But it won't have any bra.s.s to keep clean, or any skirting-boards with pretty tops to catch dust, or any corners in the rooms. Brownie and I used to talk about it. All the cupboards will be built in, so's no dust can get under them, and the windows will have some patent dodge to open inwards when they want cleaning. And there'll be built-in washstands in every room, with taps and plugs----”

”Bra.s.s taps?” queried Wally.

”Certainly not.”

”What then?”

”Oh--something. Something that doesn't need to be kept pretty. And then there will be heaps of cupboard-room and heaps of shelf-room--only all the shelves will be narrow, so that nothing can be put behind anything else.”

”Whatever do you mean?” asked Jim.

”She means dead mice--you know they get behind bottles of jam,” said Wally kindly. ”Go on, Nor, you talk like a book.”

”Well, dead mice are as good as anything,” said Norah lucidly. ”There won't be any room for their corpses on _my_ shelves. And I'll have some arrangement for supplying hot water through the house that doesn't depend on keeping a huge kitchen fire alight.”

”That's a good notion,” said Jim, sitting back on his heels, blacklead brush in hand. ”I think I'll go architecting with you, Nor. We'll go in for all sorts of electric dodges; plugs in all the rooms to fix to vacuum cleaners you can work with one hand--most of 'em want two men and a boy; and electric was.h.i.+ng-machines, and cookers, and fans and all kinds of things. And everybody will be using them, so electricity will have to be cheap.”

”I really couldn't help listening to you,” said a deep voice in the doorway.

Every one jumped. It was Miss de Lisle, in her skimpy red overall--rather more flushed than usual, and a little embarra.s.sed.

”I hope you don't mind,” she said. ”I heard voices--and I didn't think any one lived here. I knocked, but you were all so busy you didn't hear me.”

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