And I took a deep breath, for I expected to see her wilt or go straight up in the air. I knew it was a toss-up for either.
Not she! She just twisted a sour smile at me.
"Ummh!" she grunted. "Perhaps you don't know that Francis has suggested that to me several times—frankly and rudely—when I have complained. That may surprise you."
It did not surprise me—not at all, by Jove! What did surprise me was that my Frances had ever allowed this jolly female barnacle to fasten on her in this way. Remembered a remark of Jack Ellsworth's about some bounder visiting at his house that he said "the old man couldn't pry loose with a crowbar." Devilish coarse way to express it, I had thought; but now I understood.
The frump was this sort! Poor Frances! Poor Frances!
I was just considering the advisability of tactfully trying to shame this girl into taking the next train, or whatever it is, back to China, when suddenly my devilish active mind hit right on the explanation of her conduct! Bores me, you know, the way things come to me at times when I am not looking for them at all. Still, this time, I was rather glad. Might confound her and put her on the run if she knew that a shrewd, eagle-eyed man of the world had penetrated her mask.
So I coughed significantly in lieu of using her dashed name, and lifted my monocle so I could bore her sidewise through narrowed eyes.