"I shall be able to leave, but I do not desire it. I am alone, I am friendless, penniless. Doctor Brudenell, I beg you, let me remain!"
"Remain?" he echoed in bewilderment.
"Yes. Why should I not? I have been a governess; it was to be a governess that I came to this England of yours—it is a governess that you require for the children, your nephews and niece— Your housekeeper told me so but a little while ago. I should be industrious; I could teach them well. Suffer me, then, to remain."
The Doctor hesitated, feeling uneasy, astonished, puzzled. Did she mean it? Did she fully realize what she was doing—she, young, beautiful, talented—in pleading to be tied down to the dull routine of a nursery-governess? Did she remember that beneath his roof her position might be questioned by carping feminine tongues? He remembered it—not for his own sake, but for hers; but he only answered, overcoming his first feeling of surprise:
"But my dear young lady, you must be perfectly aware that your attainments are far beyond those required for the teaching of such young children as these."
"Ah, sir, yes! But are beggars then choosers?"
Doctor Brudenell got up, walked to the window and back again.
"It is a fact," he said, slowly, "that in London you have no friends?"
"Yourself," she replied.
"And beyond?"