"You'll take him for a month on trial?" I said, jesting feebly.
"Yes, Miss. I don't think I ought to be married to him till I'm sure I can put up with him."
"Of course, Susan," I answered. "But that was settled all along. He isn't expecting you at present to say that you will marry him. He simply asks whether he may come in person and persuade you."
"Yes, Miss," said Susan, colouring charmingly. And after thirty seconds she added, "Please, Miss Gertrude, I beg pardon, ... but when shall we go back to Traxelby?"
The prospect vexed me suddenly and enormously. I foresaw myself enmeshed for another month in ignominious arrangements for the comings and goings of the Lord of the Towers to the lady's-maid at the Grange. The presentiment of inevitable complications and humiliations on my very own territory was too much for my patience, and I answered Susan sharply.
"Really, Susan," I said, "do try to understand that I must think about myself a little as well as you! With all these worries, I feel as if I've hardly had three clear days at Sainte Véronique all these three weeks. You and Lord Ruddington might be the only people in the world!"
"I'm very sorry, Miss," said the bride-elect, completely penitent. "I only asked, Miss, so that we could..."
"Susan," I enquired, "how have you got on with your writing? This letter will be very short. Don't you think you can manage it yourself? Bring down my writing-case and your own pen, and see what you can do!"
"I'll try, Miss," she said, most deeply disappointed. And she went away.
When she sat down again by my side I admit that Susan astonished me by the speed and the tolerable skill with which she executed a fully-addressed envelope. But my surprise had a short life. It seems that Susan's handwriting exercises have been practically confined to the scribing and rescribing, a hundred times, of the words "Lord Ruddington" and "Ruddington Towers." But, when she sat face to face with a blank sheet of note-paper, ideas, words, and penwomanship alike failed. Susan sighed, moaned, squinted, wriggled, ate the penholder, pouted, and finally adorned the middle of the paper with a big tear.
Doubtless it was my duty to transmit that sheet of paper, tear-drop and all, to the Lord Ruddington so that he might frame it in gold and ivory or treasure it in a casket of bejewelled silver. But I was quite heartless this morning. I snatched the sheet away unkindly, crushed it up profanely, and said: