“Neither,” said Olive, gravely; “a P.O.M., a proposal of marriage. But wasn’t it odd to see the post crying? I fell in love with her at once. I saw that such a quaint creature would do more good to me than to Her Majesty’s service, and so, hey, presto! she was whisked from the post-office and changed into a tire-woman.”
“And, oh! what a refreshing contrast with the London servant,” added Mrs. Wyndwood. “Primitiva is really a servant, not a critic on the hearth.”
“Yes,” said Olive, “she believes that all London ladies smoke, and considers Nor eccentric for not indulging. And whatever I tell her is gospel; she thinks I’m like George Washington—invariably truthful.”
“Then she thinks you eccentric, too,” said Herbert, smiling back.
Olive’s eyes danced; her lips quivered trying to keep back the smile of response.
“Save your cynicism for town, sir,” she said. “Primitiva doesn’t think anything of the kind. The world is not a whited sepulchre to her. It is lucky I removed her from the sphere of your blighting influence.”
“Yes,” grumbled Herbert. “She’s our farmer’s daughter, Matt. And she might have hovered about our dinner-table.”
“I couldn’t leave Marguerite in the way of Faust,” said Olive, plumply.
Matthew Strang winced; Miss Regan’s plain speaking grated upon him, and he saw that Mrs. Wyndwood had lowered her eyes in like annoyance and had commenced to walk homewards. And he resented this preoccupation with Primitiva; he feared she was going to play the part of the dog, Roy. Herbert hummed an operatic bar or two and broke off laughing: “I wish I had Faust’s voice. A lovely tenor voice was apparently among the profits of his bargain with the devil.”
Miss Regan laughed merrily. “Are you going back, Nor?” she called out.