"Merely Mary Ann?"
"Yessir."
He smiled. "Seems a sort of white Topsy," he was thinking.
She stood still, holding in her hand the table-cloth she had just folded. Her eyes were downcast, and the glint of sunshine had leapt upon the long lashes.
"Well, Mary Ann, tell your mistress there is a piano coming. It will stand over there—you'll have to move the sideboard somewhere else."
"A piano!" Mary Ann opened her eyes, and Lancelot saw that they were large and pathetic. He could not see the colour for the glint of sunshine that touched them with false fire.
"Yes; I suppose it will have to come up through the window, these staircases are so beastly narrow. Do you never have a stout person in the house, I wonder?"
"Oh, yes, sir. We had a lodger here last year as was quite a fat man."
"And did he come up through the window by a pulley?"
He smiled at the image, and expected to see Mary Ann smile in response. He was disappointed when she did not; it was not only that her stolidity made his humour seem feeble—he half wanted to see how she looked when she smiled.