“We can go on to the lawn. There are some chairs there.”
“Is everybody asleep? All your servant gels?”
“We have no servant girls,” she smiled.
He shook his head.
“I don’t blame you. I hate ’um. Got six fellows in uniform at my house. They frighten me stiff!”
She led him across the lawn, carrying a cushion, and, settling him in a chair, waited. The beginnings of these interviews had always seemed as promising, but after a while Mr. Maitland had a trick of rambling off at a tangent into depths which she could not plumb.
“You’re a nice gel,” said Maitland huskily. “I thought so the first time I saw you . . . you wouldn’t do a poor old man any ’arm, would you, miss?”
“Why, of course not, Mr. Maitland.”
“I know you wouldn’t. I told Matilda you wouldn’t. She says you’re all right. . . . Ever been in the workhouse, miss?”
“In the poorhouse?” she said, smiling in spite of herself. “Why, no, I’ve never been in a poorhouse.”