“Miss Pembury, if you hadn’t come here as companion to my boy, I should have had to keep you here as my secretary.”
He could not guess the pleasure the simple words gave to the sensitive and grateful Rhoda. She had to pause a moment before she could reply with calmness:
“I wonder you have never before thought of having a secretary, Sir Robert.”
He shook his head.
“I wouldn’t have one for worlds,” he answered with decision, “unless I could get one to undertake the duties of free will. What! To have a professional secretary fingering my papers, and handling my treasures coldly, because it was his or her duty to do it!” And with a little playful assumption of horror, he added: “Do you know, I really think it would injure the pictures and the china too, to be subjected to the perfunctory care of some one specially engaged to look after them? No. I’m fanciful about my treasures. Whatever work is done in connection with them, must be done for love.”
The ingenuous words struck a responsive chord within the breast of Rhoda, and she did not say a word.
But the implied compliment to her thoughtful help was treasured up in her heart, and it made her happy for the day.
Lady Sarah’s return was delayed for a week, so that, when at last Mrs. Hawkes received word that she was to prepare her rooms, Rhoda had been a fortnight at the Mill-house, and was already feeling quite at home.
She spent the day between Caryl and Sir Robert; very often now, indeed, Caryl would insist upon her taking him into his father’s study, where he would lie in a corner watching Rhoda while she deciphered notes and copied inscriptions.
Sir Robert began to entrust more and more of his work to her, always prefacing any request with a humble apology for taking up so much of her time, and always receiving the quiet assurance that what he asked her to do was just what she had been wishing herself that she might do.