"Well, m'm. We've had such a queer lot of girls here lately, haven't we?" The pertness was intensified. "I don't hardly care to stay. I feel we sh'd both be better for a change like."
It was perhaps Ada's subtly insolent use of the word "we" and "both" that definitely brought about a new phase of the interview. Hilda suddenly lost all desire for an amicable examination of the crisis.
"Very well, Ada," she said, shortly. "But remember I shan't take you back again, whatever happens."
Ada moved away, and then returned.
"Could I leave at once, m'm, same as cook?"
Hilda was astonished and outraged, despite all her experience and its resulting secret sardonic cynicism in regard to servants. The girl was ready to walk out instantly.
"And may I enquire where you'd go to?" asked Hilda with a sneer. "At this time of night you couldn't possibly get home to your parents."
"Oh!" answered Ada brightly. "I could go to me cousin's up at Toft End. And her could send down a lad with a barrow for me box."
The plot, then, had been thought out. "Her cousin's!" thought Hilda, and seemed to be putting her finger on the cause of Ada's disloyalty. "Her cousin's!" It was a light in a dark mystery. "Her cousin's!"
"I suppose you know you're forfeiting the wages due to you the day after to-morrow?"