She did not answer.
"The other girls aren't your sort? too rowdy—what?"
Again she fell back on characteristic silence.
Each of the bed-rooms on the Third Floor had a dressing-room attached.
"Well, you know my hours," he continued. "You use my dressing-room to work in whenever you like. I never use it myself; and I know you've a lot to do for me."
Ruth thanked him; and after that in the afternoons, when he was out, and in the evenings, when he was at dinner, she would sit in his dressing-room and work.
One evening, as she sat beside the window, her dark head bent over her work, she was aware that he was standing over her.
He had come in on her very quietly from behind, not through his bed-room but through the door of the dressing-room that opened into the corridor.
She rose to go, gathering her work.
He put his hand upon her shoulder, and pressed her gently back into the chair. She trembled beneath his touch.