The laundress was elated, because she was fond of romance, and still more because she was a greedy young creature, and scented an especially good dinner. And they all welcomed Ross with cordiality.
“It’s too bad you had to be waiting the long time it was!” said the cook. “You’ve a right to be famished entirely, Mr. Moss!”
Much mollified, the young man admitted that he was hungry.
“You’d oughter of come over for a cuper tea this afternoon,” said the housemaid. “And a piecer cake.”
“You’d oughter of tole him, Gracie,” the laundress added. “Poor feller! He don’t know the ways here, yet!”
“Sit down, the lot of ye!” said the cook.
They did, and that unparalleled dinner began. It must be borne in mind that Ross was wholly unaccustomed to this sort of thing, to home cooking at its best, to the maternal kindness of women toward a hungry man. He liked it.
He was in no hurry to go back to the solitude of the garage, and his own thoughts. Being invited to smoke, he lit a cigarette and made himself very comfortable, while the cook washed the dishes, and Gracie and the laundress dried them. He was still taciturn, because he couldn’t be anything else; but he answered questions.
He admitted that he had traveled a bit, and when the laundress, who was disposed to be arch, asked to be told about them queer places, he gave a few facts about the exports and imports of Manila. Anyhow, they all listened to him, and said, “Didjer ever!” and it was altogether the pleasantest hour he had yet spent in his native land.
And then—the swing door banged open, and there stood Amy, with a fur coat over her shimmering dress, and an ominous look in her black eyes.