"Given notice!" cried Victoria. "Oh dear, oh dear! What shall we do? Millie, how could you let her? She's been with us longer than any servant we've had since father died and she cooks so well considering everything. She knows our ways now and I've always been so careful to give her everything she wanted. Oh Millie, how could you? You really shouldn't have done it!"
"I didn't do it," said Millie. "She did it. I simply asked her to look at the butcher's book for the last fortnight. It was disgracefully large. She chose to be insulted and gave notice."
"Isn't that vexing?" cried Victoria. "I do think you might have managed better, Millie. She isn't a woman who easily takes offence either. She's taken such a real interest in us all and nothing's been too much trouble for her!"
"Meanwhile," Millie said, "she's been robbing you right and left. You know she has, Victoria. You as good as admitted it to me the other day. Of course if you want to go on being plundered, Victoria, it's no affair of mine. Only tell me so, and I shall know where I am."
"I don't think you ought to speak to me like that," said Victoria. "It's not kind of you. I didn't quite expect that of you, Millie. You know the troubles I have and I hoped you were going to help me with them and not give me new ones."
"I'm not giving you new ones," Millie answered. "I'm trying to save you. However——"
It was at this point that Clarice interrupted. "Now I hope at last, Victoria," she said, "that your eyes are opened. It only supports what I was saying downstairs. Miss Trenchard (Clarice had been calling her Miss Trenchard for the last fortnight) may be clever and attractive and certainly young men seem to think her so, but suited to be your secretary she is not."
Millie got up from her seat. "Isn't this beginning to be rather personal?" she said. "Hadn't we all better wait until we are a little cooler?"
"No we had not," said Clarice, trembling with anger. "I'm glad this occasion has come at last. I've been waiting for it for weeks. I'm not one to be underhand and to say things behind people's backs that I would not dare to say to their faces; I say just what I think. I know, Miss Trenchard, that you despise me and look down upon me. Of that I have nothing to say. It may be deserved or it may not. I am here, however, to protect my sister. There are things that she is too warm-hearted and kind-natured to see although they do go on right under her very nose. There have been occasions before when I've had to point circumstances out to her. I've never hesitated at what was I thought my duty. I do not hesitate now. I tell you frankly, Miss Trenchard, that I think your conduct during these last weeks has been quite disgraceful. You have alienated all Victoria's best friends, disturbed the servants and flirted with every young man that has come into the house!"
This was the second occasion on which Millie lost her temper that morning.