Part 46 (2/2)

”If you do it again,” I warned her--a sudden movement on her part hinting to me the possibility--”I'll kiss you again! I mean it.”

”Leave the room!” she commanded, pointing with her angular arm towards the door.

I did not wish to remain. I was about to retire with as much dignity as circ.u.mstances permitted.

”Boy!” she added.

At that I turned. ”Now I won't go!” I replied. ”See if I do.”

We stood glaring at each other.

”What right have you in here?” she demanded.

”I came to see Mr. Deleglise,” I answered. ”I suppose you are Miss Deleglise. It doesn't seem to me that you know how to treat a visitor.”

”Who are you?” she asked.

”Mr. Horace Moncrieff,” I replied. I was using at the period both my names indiscriminately, but for this occasion Horace Moncrieff I judged the more awe-inspiring.

She snorted. ”I know. You're the house-maid. You sweep all the crumbs under the mats.”

Now this was a subject about which at the time I was feeling somewhat sore. ”Needs must when the Devil drives;” but as matters were, Dan and I could well have afforded domestic a.s.sistance. It rankled in my mind that to fit in with the foolish fad of old Deleglise, I the future d.i.c.kens, Thackeray and George Eliot, Kean, Macready and Phelps rolled into one, should be compelled to the performance of menial duties. On this morning of all others, my brilliant literary career just commenced, the anomaly of the thing appeared naturally more glaring.

Besides, how came she to know I swept the crumbs under the mat--that it was my method? Had she and Dan been discussing me, ridiculing me behind my back? What right had Dan to reveal the secrets of our menage to this chit of a school-girl? Had he done so? or had she been prying, poking her tilted nose into matters that did not concern her? Pity it was she had no mother to occasionally spank her, teach her proper behaviour.

”Where I sweep our crumbs is nothing to do with you,” I replied with some spirit. ”That I have to sweep them at all is the fault of your father. A sensible girl--”

”How dare you speak against my father!” she interrupted me with blazing eyes.

”We will not discuss the question further,” I answered, with sense and dignity.

”I think you had better not!” she retorted.

Turning her back on me, she commenced to gather up her hairpins--there must have been about a hundred of them. I a.s.sisted her to the extent of picking up about twenty, which I handed to her with a bow: it may have been a little stiff, but that was only to be expected. I wished to show her that her bad example had not affected my own manners.

”I am sorry my presence should have annoyed you,” I said. ”It was quite an accident. I entered the room thinking your father was here.”

”When you saw he wasn't, you might have gone out again,” she replied, ”instead of hiding yourself behind a picture.”

”I didn't hide myself,” I explained. ”The easel happened to be in the way.”

”And you stopped there and watched me.”

”I couldn't help it.”

She looked round and our eyes met. They were frank, grey eyes. An expression of merriment shot into them. I laughed.

Then she laughed: it was a delightful laugh, the laugh one would have expected from her.

”You might at least have coughed,” she suggested.

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