"I really can't say."
She laughed merrily. "Oh dear, how you must get robbed by your servants! Have you got servants, by the way?"
Hudson, who had been watching with admiration the unconscious supple grace of the girl as she bustled about the room replied, "Yes, a dirty old woman, a laundress as we call them in the Temple, who comes for an hour every morning and pretends to clean up the place."
"How curious! but you should get her to clean your plates better; just look at the dust on this one. Now I wonder where I'm going to find a tea-cloth."
At last Mary had arranged the table to her satisfaction, and they sat down to a comfortable little supper.
Mary had but very rarely drunk anything stronger than tea, and the Burgundy was a new and, it must be confessed, not unpleasant sensation to her after the wear of the first day of liberty. But she soon perceived that it was a perilous pleasure and was cautious.
The conversation was still rather constrained. Each was sounding the other. He was trying to find out what was the real disposition of this very incomprehensible girl. She, amazed at this unwonted kindness from a stranger, was reserved, suspicious of his motives; for Mary was a London girl, and was not gifted with that absolute innocence which is sometimes attributed to such heroines—heroines who, living in pitch, are in some miraculous way all undefiled, are even ignorant that the pitch is there.
At eleven o'clock Hudson knew Mary's history, but he was as far as ever from her. He was accustomed to shy, to bold, to coquettish, to silly, to mercenary, women, to almost every sort of girl, and knew how to manage them: but before this girl he was lost.
This was not merely because she was cold—had she been stupidly so, he would have known how to act; but she inspired a real respect that kept him at a distance.
There was no enlargement of the intimacy, and after supper matters were worse again: the awkward feeling on either side chilled the conversation.