Here I suppressed a gasp, just in time. He liked Million's voice! He liked that appalling Cockney accent that has sounded so much more ear-piercing and nerve-rasping since it has been associated with the clothes that--well, ought to have such a very much prettier sort of tone coming out of them!
He liked it. Oh, he must be in love at first sight--at first sound!
"Plenty of these young English girls talk as if it sprained them over each syllable. You're brisk and peart and alive," he told her earnestly. "I think you've a lovely way of talking."
Miss Million was taking it all in, as a girl does take in compliments, whether they are from the right man or from the wrong one. That is, she looked as if every word were cream to her. Only another woman could have seen which remark she tossed aside in her own mind as "just what he said," and which tribute she treasured.
I saw that what appealed to Miss Million was "the lovely way of talking" and "the cunning way she'd fixed herself up." In fact, the two compliments she deserved least.
Oh, how I wished she'd say "Yes, thank you," at once to a young man who would certainly be the solution of all my doubts and difficulties as far as my young mistress was concerned! He'd look after her. He'd spoil her, as these Americans do spoil their adored womenkind!
All her little ways would be so "noo," as he calls it, to him, that he wouldn't realise which of them were--were--were the kind of thing that would set the teeth on edge of, say, the Honourable Jim Burke.
He--Mr. Hiram P. Jessop--would make an idol and a possession of his little English wife. That conscienceless Celt would make a banking-account of her--nothing else.
Oh, yes! How I wished she'd take her cousin and be thankful----
But here was Miss Million shaking her little dusky head against the gay-coloured cushions.
"I'm sure it's very kind of you to say all this," she told him in a rather mollified tone of voice, "but I'm afraid we can't arrange things the way you'd like. A girl can't sort of make herself like people better than other people, just because it might 'appen to be convenient."
"Other people," repeated the young American quickly. "Am I to take it that there is some one else that you prefer, Cousin Nellie?"