"I mean that Miss Messenger always calls me Campion."
"Well, then, I suppose I must, too. We are simple people, Miss Campion, and not long from America, where they do things different, and have dinner at half-past twelve and supper at six. And my husband has gone to bed. What is to be done?"
That a gentleman should suppose bed possible at eight o'clock in the evening, was a thing so utterly inconceivable that Campion could for the moment suggest nothing. She only stared. Presently she ventured to suggest that his lordship might get up again.
"Get up, Timothy; get up this minute!" Her ladyship shook and pushed him till he opened his eyes and lifted his head. "Don't stop to ask questions, but get up right away." Then she ran back to the door. "Miss Campion!"
"Yes, my lady."
"I don't mind much about myself, but it might not look well for his lordship not to seem to know things just exactly how they're done in England. So please don't tell the servants, Miss Campion."
She laid her hand on the maid's arm, and looked so earnest, that the girl felt sorry for her.
"No, my lady," she replied. And she kept her word, so that though the servants all knew how the noble lord and his lady had been brought from Stepney Green, and how his lordship floundered among the plates at lunch, and ate up half a loaf with afternoon tea, they did not know that he went to bed instead of dressing for dinner.
"And, Miss Campion," she was now outside the door, holding it ajar, and the movements of a heavy body hastily putting on clothes could be distinctly heard, "you will please tell me, presently, what time they do have things."
"Yes, my lady."