“All I want is a lead,” he said, “and then I can manage for myself.”
Philip, to please him, made one or two remarks, but she answered with monosyllables. She had taken their measure. They were boys, and she surmised they were students. She had no use for them. Dunsford noticed that a man with sandy hair and a bristly moustache, who looked like a German, was favoured with her attention whenever he came into the shop; and then it was only by calling her two or three times that they could induce her to take their order. She used the clients whom she did not know with frigid insolence, and when she was talking to a friend was perfectly indifferent to the calls of the hurried. She had the art of treating women who desired refreshment with just that degree of impertinence which irritated them without affording them an opportunity of complaining to the management. One day Dunsford told him her name was Mildred. He had heard one of the other girls in the shop address her.
“What an odious name,” said Philip.
“Why?” asked Dunsford.
“I like it.”
“It’s so pretentious.”
It chanced that on this day the German was not there, and, when she brought the tea, Philip, smiling, remarked:
“Your friend’s not here today.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said coldly.
“I was referring to the nobleman with the sandy moustache. Has he left you for another?”