Then he hadn't heard Aunt Anastasia calling me in that very rasping voice the other evening.
"No," I said, "'Nellie' is our maid; at least she was our maid."
"Oh, really?" he said, very interested.
He has a delightful face. I don't wonder Million said he was just what she meant by "the sort of young gentleman" that she would like to marry.
Then a thought struck me.
Why not?
Men have married their pretty cooks before now. Why shouldn't this nice young man be Million's fate? He certainly did seem interested in her. It would be a regular King-Cophetua-and-the-Beggar-Maid romance. Only, owing to her riches, it would be Million's rôle to play Queen Cophetua to this young man, who was too poor to go into the Army. So, feeling quite thrilled by the prospect of looking on at this love story, I said: "Would you like to send the brooch on to—to—er—to Miss Nellie Million yourself?" You see, I thought if he knew where to take it, he would probably go at once to the Hostelry for Cats of Independent Means and see Million, and find out about her being now a young lady of leisure—and—well, that might be the beginning of things!
So I smiled at him and added in my most friendly voice, "Would you like me to give you the address?"
It was at this moment—this precise moment before he'd even had time to answer—that Aunt Anastasia, back from her visit to her friend, came up the tiny garden path behind him.
Yes, and this was the scene that met her gaze: her niece, her poor brother's child, Lady Anastasia's great-granddaughter (who had already been reproved for forgetting that she belonged to "our family"), standing at the front door of her abode to repeat the offence for which she had been taken to task—namely, "talking to one of the impossible people who live about here!" The way in which Aunt Anastasia stalked past the young man was more withering than the most annihilating glance she could have given him.