If the parlour-maid had not been on the landing, he would have leaned against the wall and covered his face.
The girl glanced at the door he had just closed.
"Ain't she a little dream?"
Anthony grinned.
"Might be worse," he ventured, endeavouring to steer between the respective sandbanks of disloyalty and odium. "I've got the place," he added ingenuously.
The girl stared at him.
That Anthony did not appreciate why she had remained upon the landing was to her incredible.
"I 'eard," she said loftily.
Anthony felt crushed.
At his suggestion she let him out of the front door.