"Yes," said I, thawing a trifle; "I am Miss Butterworth."
He looked at me almost as if I were a curiosity.
"And did you sleep there last night?" he urged.
I thought it best to thaw still more.
"Of course," I said. "Where do you think I would sleep? The young ladies are friends of mine."
He rapped abstractedly on the counter with a small key he was holding.
"Excuse me," said he, with some remembrance of my position toward him as a stranger, "but weren't you afraid?"
"Afraid?" I echoed. "Afraid in Miss Knollys' house?"
"Why, then, do you want a key to your door?" he asked, with a slight appearance of excitement. "We don't lock doors here in the village; at least we didn't."
"I did not say it was my door," I began, but, feeling that this was a prevarication not only unworthy of me, but one that he was entirely too sharp to accept, I added stiffly: "It is for my door. I am not accustomed even at home to sleep with my room unlocked."