Then I realized all this embarrassment was because he thought I should feel uncomfortable at being caught doing house-work! Not, as one might have imagined, because he had been caught peeping into our garden. Oh, the odd ideas of the lower classes!
I took up a Sèvres cup and began to pull the silk duster gently through the handle.
"Er—can I help you?" he said.
At that I burst out laughing. Those thick, common hands touching grandmamma's best china!
"No, no!" I said.
He grew less self-conscious.
"By Jove! how pretty you are in that cap!"
"Am I?"
"Yes, and you are laughing, and not snubbing a fellow so dreadfully as you generally do."
"No?"