"Yes, I know; aren't they awful! I always expect Aunt Augusta to burst from her room with a poker in her hand. Were you looking for something to eat?"
"I was looking for some milk," he admitted; "a cat got into my room and knocked down the milk-jug. I don't like tea without milk."
"I expect it was Granny."
"Granny?" repeated Colonel Crayfield, mystified.
Stella laughed. "Not my grandmother! Was it an old black-and-white cat with a very long tail?"
"I really did not notice. Anyway, the brute broke the jug and was drinking the milk——"
"Here you are then," she handed him a jug.
He took it. "But have you all you want yourself?" he inquired politely.
"Heaps," she replied, munching her crust. "Have a piece of bread? It's lovely—home made. I only wish I had an onion, too. Don't you love onions?"
"I don't object to them——" he began; then suddenly the unfitness of the situation came home to him with something of a shock. Here was he, the ruler of a vast area in India, accustomed to ceremony and circumstance and state, pilfering a larder with a chit of a girl—discussing onions, of all things; and further than that he was not dressed! It might have been a silly dream.