‘You don’t mean it!’ she exclaimed with genuine surprise. ‘I’m so glad I’m here!’
‘Are you on a visit, then?’
‘Indeed I am; though how it came about I don’t know. I dare say my father does. Lady Brotherton has invited me, stiffly of course, to spend a few weeks during their stay. Sir Giles must be in it: I believe I am rather a favourite with the good old man. But I have another fancy: my grandfather is getting old; I suspect my father has been making himself useful, and this invitation is an acknowledgment. Men always buttress their ill-built dignities by keeping poor women in the dark; by which means you drive us to infinite conjecture. That is how we come to be so much cleverer than you at putting two and two together, and making five.’
‘But,’ I ventured to remark, ‘under such circumstances, you will hardly enjoy your visit.’
‘Oh! sha’n’t I? I shall get fun enough out of it for that. They are—all but Sir Giles—they are great fun. Of course they don’t treat me as an equal, but I take it out in amusement. You will find you have to do the same.’
‘Not I. I have nothing to do with them. I am here as a skilled workman—one whose work is his sufficient reward. There is nothing degrading in that—is there? If I thought there was, of course I shouldn’t come.’
‘You never did anything you felt degrading?’
‘No.’
‘Happy mortal!’ she said, with a sigh—whether humorous or real, I could not tell.
‘I have had no occasion,’ I returned.