[Pg 40]

"Mr. Livingston and Mr. Devereux will tell you that I did not make a failure of it."

"Really?"

Katherine was silent.

"Really," Lady Garribardine repeated again. "You mean that you think you can pick up things quickly."

"Yes."

"It is certainly an advantage. I hoped to find something exceptional when I advertised."

"Yes, I noticed that—and it was because your advertisement was unusual that I applied for the post."

She rather wondered if she ought to have put in any "Ladyships"; she remembered Hanson, Lord Algy's valet, was very prodigal of such marks of respect—that is what had deterred her. Liv and Dev often used them, too—to new and prosperously connected clients—but she did not wish to be subservient more than was necessary. She would watch and listen—as she had watched about the oysters.

"Can you read aloud?"

Lady Garribardine was fixing her with her flashing brown eyes, which contrasted so unfavourably with the bronze-gold wig she wore so bravely.

"I have never tried. If I did it wrong the first time and you corrected me, I expect I wouldn't do it twice."

"That is something—and your voice is refined—you did not acquire that at the—er—pork butcher's?"

"No, I acquired it by listening to members of the upper classes who came to borrow money—I had a cockney twang like my sisters, I daresay, in the beginning."

"That shows you can learn things."

"Yes, it is only stupid people who can't."

"You are not stupid, then?"

[Pg 41]

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