When Miss Harford sat down she pulled off her gloves in rather a disturbed manner.
"I was sorry to keep you waiting, but I had to go out on urgent business. You are very young, Miss Ward—younger than I expected, and than Miss Warburton led me to suppose."
She spoke in a slightly aggressive voice, as though Miss Ward were somehow to blame for her youthful aspect.
"That will mend in time, Doreen, my love," observed Mrs. Mainwaring, kindly. "I think Miss Ward seems a very sensible young lady." And then Waveney longed to hug her.
"I am nineteen," she said, looking Miss Harford full in the face. "That is not so very young, after all; and I have acted as secretary to a lady in Cheyne Walk. It was only a morning engagement, certainly, but Miss Warburton knows all about me, and she thought this situation would just suit me. I am fond of reading aloud, and I never get tired, and——"
"Doreen, if you do not engage this young lady, I think I shall." But Mrs. Mainwaring was only joking, as her niece knew well, for it would have been more than her life was worth to do such a thing.
For Fairy Magnificent had a faithful maid who simply worshipped her, and would have fought any woman who offered to do her service. Her mistress wanted no paid companion as long as she was in the house, she would say; and as Rachel ruled her mistress—and, indeed, the whole household, there was little probability of her indulging in this luxury.
Miss Harford's face brightened. She understood the purport of her aunt's little joke: she liked Miss Ward, and wished her niece to engage her.
"Althea will not mind her being young," she said, significantly; and then Miss Harford turned to Waveney.
"Miss Warburton will have given you some idea of the duties required"—and now her manner had decidedly softened. "We are very busy people, and we lead two lives, the working life and the social life; and as we are fairly strong, we manage to enjoy both. Unfortunately, my sister has had a little trouble with her eyes lately—the doctors say it is on the nerves. Sometimes when she reads or writes she has pain in them, and has to close her book, or shut up her desk. If she were to persevere the pain would become excruciating; it is certainly on the nerves, for sometimes she is not troubled at all."