"Of course not, of course not," Burton answered. "You must get some more servants. Get as many as you please—black, white, or red—but for heaven's sake get the kind that won't be impertinent to Mrs. Falkener."
Smithfield shook his head.
"That's a kind will be hard to find, sir, begging your pardon," he observed.
Crane thought it best to ignore this remark.
"I tell you what to do," he said. "Call up Mr. Eliot and say we should all be glad to accept his invitation to lunch to-day if he can still have us. That will give you a little time to look about you. By to-morrow you ought to be able to find some one."
He waited to get Eliot's answer before he returned to the sitting-room, where he saw that Tucker and Mrs. Falkener had had a long, comfortable talk about their grievances and their own general righteousness. He hated to break into the calm that had succeeded by announcing that they were all going out to lunch.
"Burton," said Mrs. Falkener, directing a stern glance at her daughter, "I explained to you yesterday that was an invitation I did not care to accept."
"I know," said Crane, "but my household is now so short-handed that it seemed a question of lunching out or getting no lunch at all. If you really object to going to Eliot's, I dare say they could give you something cold at home, if you did not mind that. You will come, won't you, Cora?"
"With pleasure," answered Cora.
Crane's manner was unusually decisive, and Mrs. Falkener saw that it was time to make things smooth.