"Indeed?"
"Yes," she said, gaining more courage, "I intend taking a great deal of trouble and getting things right, and being really useful, I do not intend to eat the bread of idleness."
"Are you thinking of being a governess?"
A cold-water douche would hardly have been a greater shock to her.
"I meant I wanted to be useful here."
"Oh! You wanted to be useful. In what way?"
Poor Grace!
"I thought you would like me to order dinner, and—look after things."
"Have you had any experience? I thought you had always been at school. Did you order the dinners there?"
There was something almost insolent in his tone, and Grace through all the thick skin of her self-love, which generally prevented her seeing or feeling any intended slight, winced.