The door opened.
"Can I speak to you, m'm?"
It was the voice of Ada, somewhat perturbed. She advanced a little and stood darkly in front of the open doorway.
"What is it, Ada?" Hilda asked curtly, without turning to look at her.
"It's--" Ada began and stopped.
Hilda glanced round quickly, recognising now in the voice a peculiar note with which experience had familiarised her. It was a note between pertness and the beginning of a sob, and it always indicated that Ada was feeling more acutely than usual the vast injustice of the worldly scheme. It might develop into tears; on the other hand it might develop into mere insolence. Hilda discerned that Ada was wearing neither cap nor apron. She thought: "If this stupid girl wants trouble, she has come to me at exactly and precisely the right moment to get it. I'm not in the humour, after all I've gone through to-day, to stand any nonsense either from her or from anybody else."
"What is it, Ada?" she repeated, with restraint, and yet warningly. "And where's your apron and your cap?"
"In the kitchen, m'm."
"Well, go and put them on, and then come and say what you have to say," said Hilda, thinking: "I don't give any importance to her cap and apron, but she does."
"I was thinking I'd better give ye notice, m'm," said Ada, and she said it pertly, ignoring the command.