Miss Atteridge looked at her calmly and coldly.
"I lived in Canada for three years," she answered.
"A gal as goes to a agent to find a husband!" said Mrs. Pringle.
"No—I went to get employment as a lady detective," said Miss Atteridge. "Mr. Vavasour, you know, is a private inquiry agent as well as a matrimonial agent."
"And what did you come here for?" demanded Mrs. Pringle.
Miss Atteridge looked at her interlocutor with a still colder glance.
"Fun!" she said.
Then she sat down at the new piano and began to play the "Moonlight Sonata," and Mrs. Pringle went into the kitchen and slammed the parlour door—after which she wondered what John William would say next Sunday. On the previous Sunday he had been nastier than ever, and had expressed his determination to be dee'd at least six times.
But when the next Sunday came Miss Atteridge had departed. All Friday she had been very quiet and thoughtful—late in the afternoon she and Mr. Jarvis had gone out for a walk, and when they returned both were much subdued and very grave. They talked little during tea, and that evening Miss Atteridge played nothing but Beethoven and Chopin and did not sing at all. And when Mrs. Pringle went to bed, after consuming her toddy in the kitchen—Mr. Jarvis being unusually solemn and greatly preoccupied—she found the guest packing her portmanteau.
"I am going away to-morrow, after breakfast," said Miss Atteridge. "As I shall not be here on Sunday please say good-bye for me to Mr. John William."