"And she ought to have nightmare every night," so Forrester remarked afterwards rather grimly to his wife. "Good gracious, what taste! It shouts at one!"
Faith had defended Peg then, but she knew he was right, and she understood quite well now what Peg meant when she said she knew that she did not belong to the house.
"But it's all nonsense," she declared warmly. "I love you. I should hate the house without you."
Peg stooped and kissed her gratefully.
"You're a nice little kid," she said with a sigh. "But—it's true all the same what I say. I don't belong. If I wasn't here you'd be living quite a different life, you and Mr. Forrester. He'd be asking his friends to the house, and you'd be giving dinner-parties. But you don't because I'm here, and he's afraid I shall shock them."
"As if it matters what he's afraid of," Faith said sharply, but in her heart she knew that Peg was right; knew that, no matter how good and warm-hearted she might be, Peg grated on the Beggar Man forty times a day.
Over and over again Faith had seen him frown and turn away at one of Peg's slangy terms, just as she had seen him frown that day when she had told him that the facts of her marriage were like a novelette, and she had substituted "fairy story" instead.
Odd that then she had been so willing and anxious to please him, and that now she never considered him at all.
Peg seemed to guess something of her thoughts, for she caught her by the arm, twisting her round so that they were face to face.
"Look here," she said. "How long's it going on like this?"