“I’m writing it now,” he added, grinning. “Sob-stuff, Xantippe. I’m going to make a little gem of it. It’ll be a heart-yanking tragedy—predestined woe from the beginning. That’s what they want to-day,—weeps. So I’m going to make ’em snivel.... Moral stuff, old dear. You’ll like it. Now, be nice to that girl in there when she wakes up——”
He put his arm around Mrs. Sniffen’s starched and angular shoulders as she indignantly placed his tray on the desk before him.
“Leave me be, Mr. Barry,” she said sharply.
Some of the parties given by Annan had been attended by what Mrs. Sniffen considered “hussies.” Annan gave various sorts of parties. Some were approved by Mrs. Sniffen, some she disapproved. Her sentiments made a chilling difference in her demeanour, not in her efficiency. She was a trained servant first of all. She had been in Annan’s family for forty years.
“Be kind to her,” repeated Annan, giving Mrs. Sniffen a pat and a hug. “She’s a good little girl.... Too good, perhaps, to survive long. She’s the sort of girl you read about in romance forty years ago. She’s a Drury Lane victim. They were all fools, you know. I couldn’t leave the suffering heroine of a Victorian novel out in the Park all night, could I, old dear?”
“It’s your ’ouse, Mr. Barry,” said Mrs. Sniffen grimly. “Don’t be trying to get around me with your imperent, easy ways——”
“I’m not trying to. When you see her and talk to her you’ll agree with me that she is as virtuous as she is beautiful. Of course,” he added, “virtue without beauty is unknown in polite fiction, and is to be severely discouraged.”
“You’re the master,” snapped Mrs. Sniffen. “I know my place. I ’ope others will know theirs—particularly minxes——”
“Now, Xantippe, don’t freeze the child stiff. I’m very sure she isn’t a minx——”
Mrs. Sniffen coldly laid down the law of suspects: