"Anybody would know, who knew anything," I consoled her. "And I'll tell you one thing. A man like Mr. Burke knows everything. Give him my love--no. Mind you don't!"
"I shall be too scared to say a word to him," began Million, whimpering. "You might----" I shut the door.
I went into my room across the corridor and prepared to spend a quiet, useful, self-effacing afternoon with my work-basket and my employer's new "pretties."
What a different afternoon it has turned out to be!
I suppose it was about twenty minutes later, but scarcely had I embroidered the first white silken "M" on Million's new crêpe-de-chine "nightie" than there was a light tap at my door. I thought it was my own tea.
Enter the sandy-haired, middle-aged chamber-maid. She stood, looking mightily perplexed.
Well, I suppose we are rather a perplexing proposition! Two girls of twenty-three, turning up at the Hotel Cecil with highly luxurious-looking but empty baggage, and clad as it were off a stall at some country rectory jumble sale! Blossoming forth the next day into attire of the most chic and costly! One girl, with a voice and accent of what Aunt Anastasia still calls "the governing class," acting as maid to the other, whose accent is--well, different. I wonder what the chamber-maid thinks?
(No "madam" this time, though she was obviously on the verge of putting it in!)
"--if you please, Miss Million sent me to tell you that she wished her maid to come to her at once."
Good gracious! This was an 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!
My first impulse was frankly to refuse. I wonder how many maids have felt it in their time over an unbargained-for order?
"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....