To Ethel this was of little consequence, as she paid no more attention to him than she did to the obsequious servant behind her chair; but to Mrs. Barrington he was the one drawback to complete enjoyment of the place.
Mark Hemenway was a man of limited means, but of unlimited ambitions. Every day saw him more and more indispensable to his comfort-loving employer, and every day saw him more and more determined to attain to his latest desire—nothing less than the hand of this same employer’s daughter in marriage.
In a vague way Mrs. Barrington was aware of this, though Hemenway was, as yet, most circumspect in his actions. Mrs. Barrington was greatly disturbed, otherwise she would not have ventured to remonstrate with her husband that Sunday afternoon.
“My dear,” she began timidly, “isn’t there any other—couldn’t Mr. Hemenway live somewhere else—rather than here?”
Her husband turned in his chair, and a frown that Mrs. Barrington always dreaded appeared between his eyebrows.
“Now, Bess, why can’t you leave things all comfortable as they are? I like to have you and Ethel here first rate, but I don’t see why you think you must upset things when you stay only five minutes, so to speak.”
“I—I don’t mean to upset things, John, but—I don’t like him!” she finished in sudden asperity.
“Like him! My dear, who expected you to? Nobody supposes he is one of your palavering, tea-drinking members of the upper ten! He isn’t polished, of course.”
“Polished! He’s polished enough, in a way, but—I don’t like the metal to begin with,” laughed Mrs. Barrington, timidly essaying a joke.
Her husband’s frown deepened.