An expression came into the woman’s insolent eye, which Lucy did not understand, though it made her feel hot. The woman gave her head a significant little wag. It meant something apart from what she said, though her words were insolent enough.
“I reckon there won’t be much regular cooking in your place. There never is, where there isn’t a proper master. I don’t think your place will suit me.”
“I am sure it will not!” said Lucy quietly.
One or two tawdry girls who had come up to listen to this colloquy nudged each other and laughed at the discomfiture of their fellow-worker.
“Well, you’ve got rid of her,” observed Florence. “The idea of her asking all those questions! What right have they to know anything except the work which will be required of them and the wages they are to get?”
“I don’t say that,” said Lucy. “Before a woman accepts a place, I think she has a right to know whether it is quite respectable—and many little details beside. But she might have waited till I had first put some questions to her. Fancy, if I had behaved so when I went, a stranger, to look after the first appointment I had at the Institute!”
Florence made an impatient gesture.
“You compare things which have no standard of comparison,” she said. “You are a lady and know how to behave and to keep your proper place. These creatures don’t. They must be taught. If you had taken that woman in the right way, and talked down to her and cheapened her well, she would have respected you, and she might have turned out a servant good enough.”
“Florence, dear,” pleaded Lucy, “I would not wish to take any woman into my house who could behave so. And her appearance was horrid!”
“She would have done up decently enough if you had insisted on it,” said Florence. “Why need you care how uncouth a servant looks so long as you can get plenty of work out of her? It is not as if you had a professional man in your house, and had to think of a girl’s appearance in opening the door. Do better next time. Here comes another.”