“I quite understand,” interrupted Miss Gentle, with a smile. “We won’t talk of these details, please, until you have had a trial of me, and see whether I am worthy of a salary at all!”
“Miss Gentle,” returned Mr Blurt, with sudden gravity, “your extreme kindness emboldens me to put before you another matter of business, which I trust you will take into consideration in a purely business light.—I am getting old, madam.”
Miss Gentle acknowledged the truth with a slight bow.
“And you are—excuse me—not young, Miss Gentle.”
The lady acknowledged this truth with a slighter bow.
“You would not object to regard me in the light of a brother, would you?”
Mr Blurt took one of her hands in his, and looked at her earnestly.
Miss Gentle looked at Mr Blurt quite as earnestly, and replied that she had no objection whatever to that.
“Still further, Miss Gentle: if I were to presume to ask you to regard me in the light of a husband, would you object to that?”
Miss Gentle looked down and said nothing, from which Mr Blurt concluded that she did not object. She withdrew her hand suddenly, however, and blushed. There was a slight noise at the door. It was Jiggs, who, with an idiotical stare, asked if it was not time to put up the shutters!