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"There you are! Always business, business, business that's what I complain of." With astounding recklessness Mr. Chater mildly said: "My dear, you started it." Mrs. Chater quivered: "Ah, put it on me! Put it on me! Somehow you always manage to do that. Miss Humfray, when you've quite finished your soup then perhaps Clarence can take the plates."
Never had she known a heart to act as hers was acting now thumping as if it would burst, first quickly then slowly. Perhaps Miss Humfray would feel it, and give her opinion. Where the girl now laid her small hand five infant Chaters had been nourished; the massive bosom was advertisement that they had done well.
"Very, very curious," Mr. Chater echoed. How hateful they were, the girl felt. She broke out: "I " "Miss Humfray, that is enough. Help me upstairs. I will lie down." Mr. Chater jumped brightly to the bell. "My dear, do; I will send you a hot-water bottle." His wife recalled the shortcomings for which she had been taking him to task. "Send a fiddlestick," she rapped; "on a boiling day like this!"
"It is my custom. I have the reputation of seventeen years to sustain." George quailed. "Your uncle," Miss Ram exclaimed, "will also wish to see Miss Humfray. She shall go this afternoon." "Not this afternoon," George told her. "No. To-morrow. He could not see her to-day." "Very well. To-morrow. To-night I will write the references to him. Kindly pay the fee to Miss Porter in the office.
Miss Ram at the Agency would have no more to do with her; had received a furious letter from Mrs. Eyton-Eyton; showed in the ledger a cruel line of red ink ruled through the page that began "Name: Mary Humfray," and ended "Salary: " "But I don't know a soul in London." "You had a very comfortable place. You threw it away. I have a reputation for reliable employees which I cannot afford to risk."
"And you are a liar," George stormed, "when you say " "Silence!" commanded Mr. Marrapit. "Do not anger heaven yet further. Can you still deny ?" "No!" George said very loudly. "No! No! I deny nothing. But that woman's a liar when she says Miss Humfray discussed the business with me, or that it was Miss Humfray's turn to take the damned cat. Miss Humfray knew nothing about it till I told her.
Bob Chater that she was annoyed. "I say, be decent to a fellow, Miss Humfray," he said. "Look here, I hadn't seen the kids for two years when I came back yesterday. They hardly remember their kind big brother." He addressed the small girl whose round eyes, moving from speaker to speaker since Mary had entered, were now upon him. "Do you, Angela?" he asked.
To my dying day I shall never forget my humiliation when you handed him sixpence." The unhappy husband murmured: "I do so wish you could, my dear." Mrs. Chater shook, handled her troops with the skill of a perfect tactician, and hurled in the attack upon another quarter. She said: "Ah, now insult me! Insult me before Miss Humfray! That's right! That's right! That's what I'm accustomed to.
"It wouldn't be right, Georgie, really!" Her George clanged the bell with a furious stroke that brought Mrs. Pinking in panic up the stairs. Holding himself very straight, speaking in sentences short and hard, paying to his Mary no smallest attention, he made the arrangements. Miss Humfray would take on her bedroom again. By the week. If Mrs.
Nervous and clumsy the girl struggled with it. "Miss Humfray! How slow you are! Pull it!" Mrs. Chater grabbed the turned-back wrist. A crack answered the jerk, and the glove split away in her hand. "There! Not my fault. Next time, perhaps, you will buy gloves sufficiently large. Oh, my poor heart! Now, feel. Press!" The girl bit her lip. Humiliation lumped in her throat.
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