“Prodger, dear?” she asked mildly, as though helping Milly to a slice of a never-before-tasted pudding.
And Milly seemed to be holding her plate back in the way she answered “I—don’t—know, Mother.”
“These are the occasions,” said Mother, becoming a little flustered, “when one does so feel the need of our dear English servants. Now if I could just say, ‘What is he like, Annie?’ I should know whether to see him or not. But he may be some common man, selling something—one of those American inventions for peeling things, you know, dear. Or he may even be some kind of foreign sharper.” Mother winced at the hard, bright little word as though she had given herself a dig with her embroidery scissors.
But here Marie smiled at Milly and murmured “C’est un très beau Monsieur.”
“What does she say, dear?”
“She says he looks very nice, Mother.”
“Well, we’d better——” began Mother. “Where is he now I wonder.”
Marie answered “In the vestibule, Madame.”
In the hall! Mother jumped up, seriously alarmed. In the hall, with all those valuable little foreign things that didn’t belong to them scattered over the tables.