"If I'm in the way, Miss Forster, pray command me; shall I walk on, or would you prefer that I should stay?"
Miss Forster still seemed to be in doubt; her words were scarcely friendly.
"Major Reith, I've only seen this person once in my life--she was a servant at Avonham on the night of the Easter ball--or she pretended to be. Her conduct on that occasion was of a kind which makes it amazing that she should have the assurance to address me now."
Miss Spurrier showed no signs of being hurt by the speaker's candour; she only laughed.
"It's hardly fair, Major Reith, for Miss Forster to put it like that. You will, of course, recollect the robbery of the ladies' jewels--actually from their bedrooms, when they were fast asleep. You remember how all the jewels were found again, in a leather bag? It was rather a funny story." She turned to the girl. "Miss Forster, shall I tell him all about it? I'm convinced that it would tickle him."
A flush had come over Violet Forster's face, her cheeks were as scarlet as they had just been white. Not only her lips, her whole frame seemed trembling from head to foot.
Miss Spurrier observed her with malicious amusement--she remained all smiles.
"Why, Miss Forster, how red you have all at once become, and only a moment ago I was thinking how pale you were. Doesn't a touch of colour become her, Major Reith?"
The major looked extremely uncomfortable, as if he did not know what to make of the position. Miss Forster relieved him of his perplexity.
"I think," she said to him, "that I will hear what this person has to say. She can come with me in this cab to my rooms; and may I ask you to accompany us? I have reasons for wishing you to do so. Get in."