"If," she suggested at last, with some hesitation, "you really think it better to see my grandmother, she will be down very soon. I'm going to make some tea; and you could wait, if you liked, in the next room."
"I should be delighted," said Max.
Off came the gloves; and as the girl tripped quickly into the adjoining room, he followed with alacrity.
"Mind," cried she suddenly, as she turned from the fireplace and stood by the table in an attitude of warning, "it is at your own risk, you know, that you stay. You can guess that the people who belong to a hole-and-corner place like this are not the sort you're accustomed to meet at West-End dinner tables, nor yet at an archbishop's garden-party. But as you've stayed so long, it will be better for me if you stay till you have seen Granny, as she must have heard me talking to you by this time."
Now Max, in the interest of his conversation with the girl, had forgotten all about less pleasant subjects. Now that they were suddenly recalled to his mind, he felt uneasy at the idea of the unseen but ever-watchful "Granny," who might be listening to every word he uttered, noting every glance he threw at the girl.
And then the natural suspicion flashed into his mind: Was there a "Granny" after all? or was the invisible one some person more to be dreaded than any old woman?
Another glance at the girl, and the fascinated, bewildered Max resolved to risk everything for a little more of her society.