“I know the country about here very well. Have you been able to get around much?”
“Naturally not. As a housekeeper—”
For a moment, as we came into the book-room he had stood looking gravely down; now he gave me a sudden frank, merry look and laughed. “Oh,” he said, “it's absurd, too absurd, you know,—your being a housekeeper, I mean. You're just playing at it, are n't you?”
“Indeed, Mr. Dabney,” I said, “I am not. I am very little likely to play at anything. I am earnestly trying to earn my living. The card catalogue is over there between the front windows. Is there anything else?”
“Was I rude?” he asked with an absurdly boyish air; “I am sorry. I did n't mean to be. But surely you can't mind people's noticing it?”
I fell into this little trap. “Noticing what?” I could n't forbear asking him.
“Why,” said he, “the utter incongruity of your being a housekeeper at all. I believe that that is what frightened Robbie.”
There was a strange note in his voice now, an edge. Was he trying to be disagreeable? I could not make out this young man. I moved away.
“Miss Gale,”—he was perfectly distant and casual again,—“I'll have to detain you just a moment. This bookcase is locked, you see—”
“I'll ask Mrs. Brane.”