unexpected move. An "S O S" signal, I supposed, from Million in distress! My employer, utterly unable to cope with the situation and the "strange young gentlemen alone," had ordered up reinforcements! An order! Yes, it was an order from mistress to maid! [Pg 87] My first impulse was frankly to refuse. I wonder how many maids have felt it in their time over an unbargained-for order? [Pg 87] "Tell her I'm not coming." This was what I nearly said to the chamber-maid. Then I remembered that one couldn't possibly say things like that. I sat for another second in disconcerted silence, my needle, threaded with white silk, poised above the nightie. Then I said: "Tell Miss Million, please, that I will be with her in a moment." At the time I didn't mean to go. I meant to sit on, quietly sewing, where I was until the visitors had gone. Then I could "have it out" with Million herself afterwards.... But before I put in three more stitches my heart misgave me again. Poor little Million! In agonies of nervousness! What a shame to let her down! And supposing that she, in her desperation, came out to fetch me in! I put aside my work and hastened across the corridor to my employer's sitting-room. As I opened the door I heard an unexpected sound. That sound seemed to take me right back to our tiny kitchen in Putney, when Aunt Anastasia was out, and Million and I were gossiping together. Million's laugh! Surely she couldn't be laughing now, in the middle of her nervousness! I went in. [Pg 88] A charming picture met me; a picture that might have hung at the Academy under the title of "Two Strings to Her Bow" or "The Eternal Trio," or something else appropriate to the grouping of two young men and a pretty girl. [Pg 88] The girl (Million), black-haired, white-frocked, and smiling, was sitting on a pink-covered couch, close to one of the young men—the bigger, more gorgeously dressed one. This was, of course, Mr. James Burke. He looked quite as effective as he had done in his coaching get-up. For now he wore a faultless
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