"Oh, my lady, they always say the same thing. I think men are very much the same all over the world. They say 'It's a fine day,' even if it's raining, and of course it is, and they say they want to walk a little way with me (begging your pardon), and that I am very beautiful, and that they have long loved me, if you please, my lady, and have been trying to speak about it for years. And I tell 'em I don't want 'em, and I don't, to be sure, though one (he's on the Piccadilly Circus Gazette) is a very handsome man with a heagle's glance, dressed in gray tweeds. And they won't be put off, I assure you, my lady. Men on newspapers are hextremely persevering with a fine flow of language. And if, being persuaded to take a little walk, for they are difficult to put off by trade, I do take one, they begin to ask, begging your pardon, I'm sure, my lady, if I am your sister, and I'm sure I'm as like you as a butterfly is to a beetle, as Mr. Bunting says, though he adores the ground I walk on, if he's to be believed, which I'm not sure of yet, and the butler is very angry with me about the whole affair. And one, who said he was the editor of the Times, which I don't believe in the least, because it doesn't seem likely, does it, my lady, that the editor of the Times would do such things himself? said he wanted to marry me and put me on the staff as his lovely bride. I must say he spoke most beautifully, and he said he knew Captain Goby, and also Mr. Gordon, and he said they were getting thin he thought. And another, quite the gentleman, though by his trousers poor and careful, said he owned most of the Daily Telegraph. And I couldn't help looking at his clothes. He was very quick, and said that was owing to the competition of the half-penny papers. Would I save the Daily Telegraph from himpending ruin by telling him which it would be, he said. And I said flatly that I wouldn't. I never saw such wicked impudence. Oh, yes, my lady, your hair's done now, and it's as lovely as a dream."
And, as Miss Weekes finished, she wondered, quite as much as any of the newspaper men, who it was to be.
"It's my belief," she said to Timothy, a little later, "that my lady is beginning to incline to one of 'em. I've noticed she's quieter like and more gentle. And there's a soft sadness in her eye and a colour that comes and goes."
"There ain't one of the biling worthy of her," said Timothy, bitterly. "But there, Miss Weekes, there ain't no man worthy of a real beautiful, good lidy. A fair wonder how I dares to hope that some day far off, when motor-cars has killed every 'orse, you'll be Mrs. Bunting."
"It's a great come down, Tim," said Harriet. "Mr. Gubbles says he wonders, too."
"If he wasn't the butler, and old, I'd plug 'im," said Timothy, crossly. "It's all right for me to wonder, but he ain't in it."
"Ah, but class distinctions is hard to get over, Mr. Bunting," said Harriet. "You must pardon a butler's feelings. Even Mr. Gubbles has his feelings. And he agrees with you that there's no one but a duke ought to marry our dear lady. And she demeaning herself (if I dare say so) with Academicians and war correspondencies and Jew men; not but what Mr. Gordon is very gentlemanly and generous. Only yesterday, Mr. Bunting, he says to me when he met me outside, 'Do you read?' And I says, 'Yes, sir,' being some flustered, and he says, 'You read that.' And it was a five-pound note. And he adds something about 'your vote and hinfluence.' But I can't do it, Mr. Bunting, I can't. If it was Captain Goby, I might, and if it was young Lord Bramber I might more so, and even if it was Mr. de Vere, with a duke remote in his family, but for a Jewish man I can't. So I said, 'Thank you, sir,' and he went off. But some one is beginnin' to rise up in my lady's mind, I saw it plainly when I was dressing her. It would be worth more than five pounds to know who is risin'."
"Yes," said Timothy. "'Ow much would it run to, do you think?"
"I believe it would be worth a public 'ouse."
"Beer and spirits?" asked Timothy, eagerly.