Having made this announcement, Mrs. Puckle closed the door with emphasis, and mounted the stairs.
The landing was already piled with luggage—bags, baskets, battered cardboard boxes, and shabby trunks. Lizzie conducted her supplanter to her quarters with exaggerated ceremony—even dissembling her feelings so far as to get out fresh towels and the best scented soap—and having been told to order dinner to be ready in ten minutes’ time, she flew down to me.
As the craven and base professor was a refugee in his den, Lizzie and I had the dining-room to ourselves.
“So for once he did mind telling!” I began.
“Eva, how can you joke?” she interrupted indignantly; “I was wrong to let him go alone, but influenza makes one such a worm, not only weak in body but in mind, otherwise I never would have consented to this trip to London—a most fatal excursion for him. Mrs. Bickers is the worst, most catty, and pushing of all the widows. I believe she is penniless and has just flattered herself into this comfortable home.” Then to Clarice who had entered gaping, “Clarice, your master was married ten days ago; let Eliza know.”
“Eliza, she do know,” was the prompt reply. “She says the master be daft!”
A stealthy rustle on the stairs interrupted Clarice, who hurried out, only to return almost immediately with the soup tureen and evidently prepared to enjoy a good leisurely stare at the stranger—a sleek, complacent matron, wearing a pink satin blouse and a large lace collar, fastened by a new-looking diamond brooch.
Seating herself at the head of the table and seizing the soup ladle, Mrs. Puckle said:
“I’ll just sit here, Lizzie dear, I know you won’t mind, and begin to take over at once—it saves trouble.”
Lizzie’s answer was a bow as she placed herself opposite to me; the professor now appeared and, with assumed geniality, announced that he was “starving.”