She dashed out into the corridor and met the housekeeper midway.
“I was coming to look for you,” she said, with her unfailing good temper and self-satisfaction. “I want your opinion on the drawing-room. There! Isn’t that pretty? Cousin Jethro doesn’t care a bit; but, then, men are no good at decoration.
“And I want you to give me the key of the china closet,” she added.
A queer flush stole over Gainah’s cheeks, and her distorted hand went involuntarily to her apron pocket, and her cold eyes sought Jethro’s beseechingly. Pamela had her palm outspread.
“Yes, we’ll have a look in the closet,” Jethro said easily. “Don’t know when I went in last. There is a lot of stuff that was my mother’s and your aunt’s.” As he put in this touch, he glanced meaningly at Gainah, with the half-timid assertion of a big, kindly man who has been subjugated by a mean woman.
He wanted her to remember, without troubling him to hurt her by putting it into words, that Pamela was one of the family, and had a close interest in the family crockery.
“The closet is only opened once a year, when we clean in spring,” Gainah said grudgingly. “I don’t want strange fingers handling the china.”
But she opened the door. Pamela, quite as a matter of course, took the key off the ring and slipped it into her own pocket.
“It is a mistake to hide old china. The room won’t want locking again,” she said, gliding over the bare, dusty floor. “What a lovely collection! I wish I had known, then I need not have wasted money on Kaga. Anyone can buy that for so much three farthings—farthings play a most important part in modern decorations, Cousin Jethro.”
She dimpled round at his puzzled face, and threw a conciliatory glance at Gainah, who had taken up a canary-colored jug with uneven black lettering straggling round its bulging middle. They were all three in the tiny room, lighted by one high window, across which the foamy white rose crept.