“Now, don’t be stupid,” said Michael, with some irritation. “You know very well I’m not likely to begin gossiping! But there is something unusual about this girl, and I cannot help feeling sorry for her. I had meant to speak of her to you before. What do you think of her?”
The housekeeper’s brow had cleared, but now a look of perplexity came over her face.
“To tell you the truth, Master Michael, I really don’t know,” she said. “I wouldn’t say as much to any one but yourself, and I would not for worlds betray her confidence—”
“Has she given you her confidence, then?” interrupted the young man.
“She has and she hasn’t! She has allowed that there is something about her present position that she cannot explain, and as far as things here go she has put herself in my hands, saying how inexperienced she is, and begging me to advise her if I see it necessary. But beyond that, I know no more than you do. Perhaps,”—with a touch of curiosity—“not as much, if you entered into conversation with her on the journey?” Michael laughed slightly.
“Oh, dear, no,” he said, “she would have snubbed me at once if I had said anything but the merest commonplace—and even that was only brought about by Solomon’s making such friends with her, which threw her a little off her dignity once or twice. She is a lady, nurse, I am perfectly certain of it, and that is why I am so sorry for her. The impression she made upon me,” he continued, slowly, “was that she is acting a part.” Mrs Shepton looked rather startled.
“I don’t like you to say that, Master Michael,” she replied, quickly. “I have felt from the first that I could trust her—and now that I know her better, and she has, as it were, thrown herself upon me, I couldn’t bear to go back from doing so.”
“You misunderstand me,” said Mr Gresham, with some annoyance. “Do you suppose I think she’s a burglar in disguise? People are forced into seeming what they are not sometimes, by no fault of their own.” Almost her own words to Philippa! The housekeeper in her turn hastened to exonerate herself.
“I took up your words wrongly,” she said. “I think I feel just as you do, Master Michael, about the poor girl. I am doing all I can to be a friend to her.”
“I’m very glad of that,” said Michael, heartily. “That was just what I had in my mind—to ask you to be good to her.”