Miss Fortescue looked at the ceiling in mute appeal, and then marched down the stairs.
“There’s no harm done, Miss Clifford,” said Jeannie; “I assure you I don’t in the least mind. But what did Colonel Raymond say? Oh, take care, the catalogues are slipping.”
It was too late; the pile bulged ominously in the middle, and then fell all ways at once to the ground. Miss Clifford clutched wildly at them as they fell, but the disaster was there.
“We’ll pick them up first,” said Jeannie. “Gracious, what a lot of them! Where do you want them put? Take care, you’re treading on some.”
“I was just taking them to the entrance where people pay,” said poor Miss Clifford. “Please don’t trouble; indeed, it is too good of you.”
Jeannie collected a foot or two of them, and together they deposited them all on the table by the entrance.
“And now, Miss Clifford,” she said, “will you just give me two words with you? First of all I assure you solemnly that I don’t in the least mind the picture being in the exhibition, so if it was you who passed it you can make your mind perfectly easy. But what did Colonel Raymond say about it?”
Miss Clifford looked round as if she was half determined to run away.
“I cannot tell you, Miss Avesham; indeed, I cannot tell you,” she almost moaned.
“Oh, don’t be so distressed,” said Jeannie, with the air of a grown-up person soothing a child. “I am sure I should never be anything but amused at what Colonel Raymond—I mean Cousin Raymond—said. Please tell me.”