"Yes, yes, take me away! Now, this minute. Oh, Tom, don't say you won't!"
"But where can I take you to?" asked astounded Gibson.
"To Granpong."
"Not me!" said Susan's gallant, with emphasis. "I suppose you think that at a caffy-resterong you can do anything? Don't make no mistake. They're the properest lot at Granpong that ever I struck in all my natural. Why, just to think of Madum opening the door, and me bringing in a young lady at midnight! Not me!"
"Oh, Tom, don't be such a beast!" moaned Susan. "The very idea! You know quite well, you do, that I'd never go to the same house. I'd die first. But, oh Tom, you must take me somewhere. We might go to the clergyman's wife."
"They don't have no clergymen in France," said Gibson, with British scorn; "only priests. And priests don't have no wives. But look here. What do you want to be took away for? What's up?"
Susan was silent.
"It's some tiff with the Missis," said Gibson derisively; "that's what it is. And I ain't going to be a party to it. Bet my feet the Missis is in the right. Fact is, this toff"--Gibson paused, and repeated the word with disdain--"this toff has given you swelled head. Not me! I ain't going to take sides against the Missis just for the sake of him. The old girl's always been too good to me."
The undress grammar and off-duty vocabulary of my two model domestics opened my eyes wide and made my ears burn. As for Ruddington, he touched my hand again, and I saw that his face was full of pain. He had guessed that I was showing him Susan.
"We mustn't stay," he said.