No; there's no getting any truth or any sense out of a man like that.
Just before we rose from the tea-table I said to him: "And the end of it all? I suppose you'll marry—I suppose you'll get Miss Million to marry you!"
"Marry?" said Mr. Burke with a little quick movement of his broad chest and shoulders. An odd movement! It seemed mixed up of a start, a shudder, and a shaking aside of something. "Marry? A woman with a voice like that? And hands like that?"
This touched my professional pride as manicurist and lady's-maid. I told him: "Her hands are much better since I've been looking after them!"
"They must have been pretty rough-hewn," said Mr. Burke, candidly, "before!"
"Of course, they were in a horrid state," I said unguardedly. "But yours would be red and rough if you'd had to scrub and to wash up and to black-lead fireplaces——"
"What? Had the little Million been doing all that before she came into Uncle's money?" cried the Honourable Jim, with delighted interest beaming all over his face. "Truth is stranger than cinema films! Tell me on, now; where was this Dollar Princess in service?"
"With m——" I began. Then I shut my lips with a snap. What was happening? This young man that I had meant to cross-examine was simply "pumping" me! Not only that, but I was very nearly getting to the point of being ready to tell him anything he asked. How had this come about? Anyhow, it must not be. I put on a very forbidding look and said: "I shall not tell you where Miss Million was."
"Haven't ye told me? She was with you or your relatives. If that isn't the grandest joke!" chuckled this unsuppressable young man. "Don't attempt to deny it, for I see it all now. Isn't it the finest bit of light opera? Isn't it better than me wildest dreams? And how did she shape, the heiress? What sort of a character would you give her? Was she an early riser—honest, obliging? Could she wait at table? And is it a bit of her own she's getting back now, setting you to hand round the cups?" He laughed aloud. "Can't I see it all now—the pride of her? She that was waiting on you, she's got you to skivvy for her now! Oh, I wouldn't have missed this Drama of the Domestic Servant Problem! Don't hope to keep me out of the stalls, Miss Lovelace, after this! It's in the front row I shall be in future for every performance!"
With this alarming threat he finished his ice and laughed once more, joyously. While I was debating what to say, he took up the conversation again.