With a flash the whole scene with May came back over him. He walked to the window, putting on his coat, and stood there a moment. She repeated her question.
“Unless you hear to the contrary,” said Tom. “It’s all right. You will be paid all the same. Put your address down here. I will send if I don’t want you.”
She retired behind the screen to change her clothes, and Tom still stood where he was. Just as she was passing out he stopped her.
“I don’t want to be inquisitive,” he said, “but tell me this: you are straight, aren’t you?”
The girl flushed.
“Strite! Who says I’m not strite? Your wife, I’ll be bound.”
“Never mind my wife,” said Tom. “Just tell me, will you? I shall believe you, of course.”
But the lower classes, when they happen to be respectable, are just as proud of it as the upper classes—perhaps more proud. The girl was thoroughly angry.
“I’ll thank you to tell her not to say things agin me what are not true, and never likely to be, s’elp me Gawd. An’ what does she know about me? You’re too good for her, Mr. Carlingford, with her narsty back-biting ways. I knew she was up to some mischief this morning. Strite? I’m as strite as she is, an’ striter, too, for I don’t talk ill of folks behind their backs. An’ good night to you, sir!”
She flounced out of the room and left Tom to make the best of what she had said.