"You would."
"Not if you were the last woman in the world."
Scene from the Play Paul Daingerfield submits to inspection. Act I
"Good night."
"Good-by."
The culprit seized his hat and rushed away through the shadows before Tucker had time to think out the dignified rebuke that he had intended.
There was a pause. He was conscious that an opportunity had slipped from him. He knew now what he ought to have said. He should have asked the young fellow—who was clearly a gentleman, far above Jane-Ellen in social position—whether that was the way he would have treated a girl in his own mother's drawing-room, and whether he considered that less chivalry was due to a working girl than to a woman of leisure.
Though his great opportunity was gone, he decided to do whatever remained. After a short hesitation he descended a flight of steps at one end of the piazza. The kitchen opened before him, large and cavernous. Two lamps hardly served to light it. It was red tiled; round its walls hung large, bright, copper saucepans, and on shelves of oak along its sides were rows of dark blue and white plates and dishes.
Tucker was prepared to find the cook in tears, in which case he had a perfectly definite idea as to what to do; but the disconcerting young woman was moving rapidly about the kitchen, humming to herself. She held a small but steaming saucepan in her hand, which was, as Tucker swiftly reflected, a much better weapon than the handle of an ice-cream freezer.