“There is my housekeeper,” I said, “and a maid. Shall I rouse them and—?”
“Mercy, no!” she exclaimed. “Whatever would they say if they found me here—at this time of night—?”
I nodded, quite comprehending the hint so conveyed.
“I have been visiting a friend,” she went on, observing me keenly through her drooping eyelashes, perhaps to see how I took the story, “and I—I lost my way.”
“Your friends should not have allowed you to attempt to find it by yourself,” I returned.
“My friends are not plural,” she retorted with a little trill of laughter. “They—or rather she—she is a maiden lady—and I am not in the least bit nervous. I am a country girl by birth and upbringing, and the darkness means nothing to me. It is the fog that worries me. I stayed later than I should have done, and in my hurry to get back I lost my way. Then I saw the light in your window and I came, meaning to ask where I was. I had to climb over a wall, and in doing that I cut my arm on some glass. I think it is very stupid to put glass on walls—”
“It shall be knocked off to-morrow,” I interrupted.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” the girl said demurely. “I am not likely to come this way again. But do you know Cartordale?”
“Well, know is hardly the word. I am afraid I don’t very well. I have only been here a short time,” I answered. “I know very few people. I have never seen you before, for example.”
That was a leading question very thinly disguised, but she did not rise to it.