"Why, what's the matter, Eliza?" he shouted.
"Matter! Frightenin' a body like that! I thought a lot o' suffrigettes were smashin' the windows of the snug."
Eliza was still touchy when Trenholme ventured to peep into the kitchen.
"I don't know how you dare show your face," she cried wrathfully. "The impidence of men nowadays! Just fancy you comin' an' openin' my door!"
"But, chérie, what have I done?" he inquired, his brown eyes wide with astonishment.
"I'm not your cherry, nor your peach, neither. Who put that clock in my room?"
"What clock, ma belle?"
Eliza picked up an egg, and bent so fiery a glance on the intruder that he dodged out of sight for a second.
"Listen, carissima," he pleaded, peering round the jamb of the door again. "If the alarm found its way upstairs I must have been walking in my sleep. While you were dreaming of suffragettes I may have been dreaming of you."