"It would take a long time to explain," answered Burton, "although, I assure you, it can and shall be done. Perhaps this evening, after these tiresome men have gone, you will give me a few minutes. In the meantime, just let me say that I was angry at you, however wrongly, when I came down—"
"I'm not sure but that I'm still angry at you," said the cook, but she smiled as she said it.
"You have every right to be, and no reason," he returned. "And you are going to be an angel and serve dinner, aren't you?"
"I said I would if asked politely."
"Though how in the world I shall sit still and let you wait on me, I don't see."
"Oh," said Jane-Ellen, "if you never have anything harder to do than that, you are very different from most of your sex. And now," she added, "I'd better run upstairs and put two more places at the table, for it's dinner-time already."
"If I come back later in the evening, you won't turn me out of the kitchen?"
She was already on her way upstairs, but she turned with a smile.
"It's your kitchen, sir," she said.
Crane followed her slowly. It occurred to him that he must have a talk with Lefferts. He found him and Tucker making rather heavy weather of conversation in the drawing-room. Tucker had naturally enough determined to adopt Mrs. Falkener's views of Lefferts. He had conformed with Crane's request and given the poet a cigarette and a cocktail, but he had attempted no explanation beyond an unsatisfactory statement that the ladies had been called away unexpectedly.