"So help me, sir, I don't know nothing about it! I've been a good woman all my life, so help me, and I'd never—"
"Now, now, now! I said we know you didn't do it! Didn't I say that? All right. I'm just as kin': you do remember preparing the grapefruit?"
Mrs. Propper sat down rather abruptly in a white chair. She began in a dazed way to fan her face with her apron. What her manner might be when she had assimilated the shock was difficult to tell.
"Yes, I do indeed. But-"
"What happened?"
The cook searched her wits. "I took the grapefruit out of the ice-box, and cut it in half, and put one half in a nice dish—"
"Uh-huh. But before that?"
"Before when? Oh! I see what you mean. Don't hurry me, sir! Please don't hurry me. Mrs. Fane's bell rang—" wordless, she pointed to the indicator-board on the wall—"and Daisy went up and answered it."
"Yes?"
"Daisy came down, and said Mrs. Fane would like a nice grapefruit. Daisy'll tell you that herself. Though the times I've told Mrs. Fane, the times I've said, it's not enough to keep body and soul together—"