"Certainly. She is an English servant. She asks no questions. But I told her my husband is away from town and will be absent almost constantly for the next two or three months."
Garrison slightly elevated his brows, in acknowledgment of the thoroughness of her arrangements.
"I have never attempted much acting—a little at private theatricals," he told her; "but of course we shall both be obliged to play this little domestic comedy with some degree of art."
She seemed prepared for that also, despite the sudden crimson of her cheeks.
"Certainly."
"One more detail," he added. "You have probably found it necessary to withhold certain facts from my knowledge. I trust I shall not be led into awkward blunders. I shall do my best, and for the rest—I beg of you to conduct the affair according to your own requirements and judgment."
The slightly veiled smile in his eyes did not escape her observation.
Nevertheless, she accepted his proposal quite as a matter of course.
"Thank you. I am glad you relieved me of the necessity of making some such suggestion. I think that is all—for the present." She stood up, and, fingering her glove, glanced down at the table for a moment. "May I pay, say, two hundred dollars now, as a retainer?"
"I shall be gratified if you will," he answered.
In silence she counted out the money, which she took from a purse in a bag. The bills lay there in a heap.