They reached the sink, already piled with unwashed dishes. Bert deposited those which he carried, looked around, spied a broken-backed chair, and brought it to the girl.
"Sit down!" he said.
Millie began to roll up her sleeves. "I got to wash these," she said.
"Sit down, I tell you," said Bert, in a low voice. He stood between her and her work. "Can't I see that you're just fit to drop in your tracks? Sit down! If there's washing-up to be done, where's the nigger girl?"
Millie did not sit down. She stood her ground: but she did a thing she had never done before—lifted her heavy lids, and looked up right into her lover's eyes. A wash of delicate carmine dyed her thin cheek-bones. "It keeps me out of the room—away from those swine," she said, with a note almost of appeal in her voice.
Bert felt his inmost being surge up wildly, as his whole heart went forth to her, in answer to her first confidence: the only word she had ever spoken which seemed to distinguish between him and "those swine." All that was best in him arose, and strove to meet and honour the favour she had shown.
"That's all right," he said, in tones of easy friendship. "You sit down an' tell me what to do. I'm on to this job."
In a second his coat was off and his sleeves rolled up. He had flashed a look round, spied a boiling kettle on a vilely-smelling paraffin stove, and filled the greasy washbowl. Millie subsided upon the chair with a resignation which, had he known her better, would have alarmed him. As things were, it filled him with a wild enthusiasm. But he determined to walk warily. His face glowed with enjoyment as he proceeded with his menial task. He buckled down to work in good earnest, methodically scraping the broken food off the dishes into the dog-trough set by for the purpose, and handling the crockery with skill which surprised the girl, who, sunk back in the chair, watched him without a word.
But he was human. After a while, it seemed to him that his strenuous efforts merited encouragement. He ventured greatly.
"Millie, if these Britishers write and ask you to come to them, shall you go?"