“Are you quite sure it was Mr. Strauss?” asked Violet, turning away from Jenny as though the sight of her was offensive.
“Positive! I rented, or rather I took your sister’s flat from him, and he has been plaguing my life out ever since about some papers he imagined I found there.”
“But you wrote to me a little while ago,” pleaded Violet.
“Strauss is a plausible person,” countered the other woman readily. “He came here and spun such a yarn that I practically wrote at his dictation.”
“There is no mistake this time, I hope.”
Miss L’Estrange’s color rose, and her red hair troubled her somewhat; but she answered with an effort: “There has never been any mistake on my part. Had you come to me in the first instance, and taken me into your confidence, I would have helped you. But you stormed at me quite unjustly, Miss Mordaunt, and it is not in human nature to take that sort of thing lying down, you know.”
Then, seeing the sorrow in Violet’s eyes, she went on with a real sympathy: “I wish we had been more candid with each other at first. And I had nothing whatever to do with Jenny’s make-believe of yesterday. The girl is a first-rate cook, but she can tell lies faster than a dog can trot.”
This poetic simile popped out unawares; but Violet heard the kindly tone rather than the words.
“I may want you again,” she said simply. “May I rely on you if the need arises?”