Mrs. Morrison glanced rather suspiciously at her. “I don’t know. The last governess called him a fiend. You are different from the sort we have had and expected again. I scarcely know what to say. You look a sweet-dispositioned girl, but are very young. Perhaps I’d better leave the decision to——”
Laughter and spirited repartee in the voices of a man and a woman sounded pleasantly from the hall. They seemed to decide her. She arose; crossed to the door; paused briefly to say: “His mother has just come in from her ride. Perhaps she will speak with you.”
“His mother? But—I thought—that you——”
Dolores, again alone, began to understand. Of course Mrs. Morrison was the housekeeper. That explained the first-floor parlor, the neat black taffeta of her dress and her subdued manner. A third application for the coveted position must be made.
When, next moment, the door was pushed wide, she did not rise. She had not the strength. A woman in a smart habit of black velvet coat and white cloth breeches had clattered in, crop in hand.
“Master Jack’s mother will speak with you, Miss Trent,” introduced the housekeeper.
Still Dolores found her limbs weaker than her will. She clung to both arms of the chair and waited for the real sponsor for the “fiend-child” to speak.
She—the mother—was Mrs. Cabot.
CHAPTER X
His Majesty himself dropped the curtain on the earth-play of the spirit-girl.