I kept my head up and my voice quite steady as I replied: “Oh, certainly!”
And I rose, taking up the green-garlanded cup with the small gilt apostle-spoon in the saucer, and left the drawing-room to face my first official tête-à-tête with the Governor.
Ever since he’s been the unconscious cause of my having had to give up the chance of a serene and happy future with the man who really cares for me, I’ve looked upon my employer with a mixture of resentment and dread. As I say, the dread’s melted rapidly. But the resentment’s growing!
“I’ll make him pay, somehow,” thought I revengefully, “for all this!” By “all this” I meant not only for the loss of Sydney, and the castle at Ballycool, and comfort and position, but for making me look and feel so acutely foolish before Mrs. Waters.
“I’ll see if I can’t make him rather uncomfortable over it himself,” I determined.
I crossed the hall, forcing myself to feel as if I were back in the office, where we typists took it in turn to carry Mr. Dundonald’s cup of afternoon tea into the inner sanctum, where he glowered over his figures.
(How cross he was if one of us shook the cup so that some of the tea slopped over and soaked the lump of sugar and the biscuit laid in the saucer.)
Gingerly I carried the dainty cup of black coffee across to the door of the “den.”