A curt, pointed epistle had come to Mrs. Sparflight from Mrs. Smith-Parvis. That lady announced briefly that she had been obliged to discharge Miss Emsdale, and that she considered it her duty to warn Mrs. Sparflight against recommending her late governess to any one else.
"You may answer the note, my dear," the Marchioness had said, her eyes twinkling as she watched Jane's face. "Thank her for the warning and say that I regret having sent Miss Emsdale to her. Say that I shall be exceedingly careful in the future. Sign it, and append your initials. It isn't a bad idea to let her know that I do not regard her communication as strictly confidential,—between friends, you might say. And now you must get out for a long walk today. A strong, healthy English girl like you shouldn't go without stretching her legs. You'll be losing the bloom in your cheek if you stay indoors as you've been doing the past week."
Jane's dread of meeting her tormentor had kept her close to the apartment since the night of her rather unconventional arrival. Twice the eager Trotter, thrilled and exalted by his new-found happiness, had dashed in to see her, but only for a few minutes' stay on each occasion.
"How do you like your new position?" he had asked in the dimness at the head of the stairway. She could not see his face, but it was because he kept her head rather closely pressed into the hollow of his shoulder. Otherwise she might have detected the guilty flicker in his eyes.
"I love it. She is such a dear. But, really, Eric, I don't think I'm worth half what she pays me."
He chuckled softly. "Oh, yes, you are. You are certainly worth half what my boss pays me."
"But I do not earn it," she insisted.
"Neither do I," said he.
To return to the Marchioness and the newspaper:
"We will go off on a little spree before long, my dear. A good dinner at Spangler's, a little music, and a chat with the sensation of the hour. Get Mrs. Hendricks on the telephone, please. I will ask her to join us there some night soon with her husband. He is the man who wrote that delightful novel with the name I never can remember. You will like him, I know. He is so dreadfully deaf that all one has to do to include him in the conversation is to return his smiles occasionally."