"Oh, yes, 'm," Elsie cheerfully and benevolently answered. She had not quite seen the point of the contraption. She knew that it was divided into two compartments, one above another, but why it should be so divided she had not fully understood, despite explanations administered to her.
Violet thought:
"How nice this is! How warm! What a comfort Elsie is! What a dear Henry is! And I shall have my way with him to-night, and having my way with him will make us both happier. And we're very happy, I'm sure; much happier than most people; and everything's so secure; and we've got plenty to fall back on. And how lovely and warm it is in here. And what a lovely smell. ... I hope he won't smell it till I'm ready for him." She looked to see that the door was shut and the window a little open.
Thus did Violet's thoughts run. And then she noticed, by chance as it seemed, a particle of something or other detach itself from the lower rim of the contraption and fall on the wooden shelf on which the gas-ring stood. Then another particle; then another. She was spellbound for a moment.
"Elsie!" she cried, aghast, desperate, and whipped the contraption off the ring.
"What, 'm?"
"You've not put any water in the bottom part and the solder's melted. You've ruined it! You've ruined it! How any girl can be so stupid, so stupid—after all the trouble I took to tell you—I cannot imagine. No, I cannot!"
And she could not. She knew that Elsie was stupid. In two days Violet had learnt more about the contents of the shop than Elsie had ever learnt or ever could learn. She knew that Elsie was conservative, set hard in her ways, and opposed to new knowledge. But she had not guessed that even Elsie could be so stupid as to leave the lower compartment of the contraption without water and then stick it on a lighted gas-ring! The phenomenon passed her comprehension.
"Stand away, do!" she exclaimed, as Elsie, puckered and gloomy, approached the region of disaster. "I shall have to have it repaired. And I can't cook this now as I wanted to. And I shall have to begin it all over again. And your master comes home tired out and this is all you can manage to do!"
Elsie, though severely conscience-stricken, was confirmed in her opinion that these new-fangled dodges were worthless—you never knew where you were with them.