“As if I could be hired to do anything so exceedingly unmanly,” said the footman, bowing low, with one hand on his heart, “the bare idea is wounding to—to—— Yes, wounding, Miss Ellen.”
“But I didn’t mean it as such. The feathery idee was a comparison, not an actuality, Mr. Robert. Excuse me, I meant no harm; there isn’t a girl living who appreciates your superfluous qualities better than I do. Pray forgive me!”
Robert allowed himself to be appeased, and took Miss Ellen’s hand affectionately in his, while he besought her to go on with her touching narrative.
“There isn’t much more to tell,” said Ellen, leaving her hand rather longer than was necessary in the footman’s clasp. “I found her what seemed to me stone-dead, her hands cold as ice, her face white as the marble over which the water dripped, her hair wet with the spray of the fountain. Old Storms began to cry, and the under-gardener—”
“Well, Miss Ellen, what of him?” demanded the footman, tossing the clinging hand away indignantly. “What of that cretur? Did he have the cheek to offer to help, and lift the madam up, and, perhaps, touch that hand in doing of it—that hand which mine—— Speak, Ellen, what did that wretched being presume to do?”
“Why, Robert, he only lifted her up from the cold marble of the floor, and laid her on a garden-sofa.”
“He did? That is enough. I understand the rest. Perfidious woman! You helped him! Your hands met—your eyes——”
“No, Robert, no! I hardly looked at him. But what could we do? Old Storms hasn’t the strength of a baby, and I was so frightened!”
“But you talked with him?”
“Only to get all the particulars which the crabbed old man wouldn’t talk about. In fact, he tried to make me believe that nothing out of the common had happened; that no strange man had been there; and he was awful huffy with the under-gardener for coming in after me. In fact, if I had depended on old Storms, not a soul in this house would have known anything about it.”