"It's monstrous!" she exclaimed.
"Stoopid!" agreed Alaric. "Doocid stoopid."
Ethel said nothing. The one thought that was passing through her mind was: "How much did that girl hear Brent say and how much did she see Mr. Brent do?"
Hawkes tried to smooth the misunderstanding out.
"I am afraid it was all my fault," he explained. "I told her not to talk. To just say that she was to wait. I wanted to have an opportunity to explain matters before introducing her."
"She should have been brought straight to me," complained Mrs. Chichester. "The poor thing." Then with a feeling of outraged pride she said: "My niece in kitchen. A Kingsnorth mistaken for a servant!"
The door opened and Jarvis came into the room. There was a look of half-triumph on his face as much as to say: "Now who would not make a mistake like that? Who could tell this girl was your niece?"
He beckoned Peg to come into the room.
Then the Chichester family received the second shock they had experienced that day—one compared with which the failure of the bank paled into insignificance. When they saw the strange, shabby, red-haired girl slouch into the room, with her parcels and that disgraceful-looking dog, they felt the hand of misfortune had indeed fallen upon them.