mley, but that was nothing to prevent his taking rooms in
the village and coming up every day. This tyranny of one person over
another! And she was so miserably constructed that she wouldn't even
be able to frown him down without being misunderstood.

Scrap, who loved this time of the evening in her corner, felt
indignant with Mr. Briggs who was doing her out of it, and she turned
her back on the garden and him and went towards the house without a
look or a word. But Briggs, when he realized her intention, leapt to
his fee, snatched chairs which were not in her way out of it, kicked a
footstool which was not in her path on one side, hurried to the door,
which stood wide open, in order to hold it open, and followed her
through it, walking by her side along the hall.

What was to be done with Mr. Briggs? Well, it was his hall; she
couldn't prevent his walking along it.

"I hope," he said, not able while walking to take his eyes off
her, so that he knocked against several things he would otherwise have
avoided--the corner of a bookcase, an ancient carved cupboard, the
table with the flowers on it, shaking the water over--"that you are
quite comfortable here? If you're not I'll--I'll flay them alive."

His voice vibrated. What was to be done with Mr. Briggs? She
could of course stay in her room the whole time, say she was ill, not
appear at dinner; but again, the tyranny of this . . .

"I'm very comfortable indeed," said Scrap.

"If I had dreamed you were coming--" he began.

"It's a wonderful old place," said Scrap, doing her utmost to
sound detached and forbidding, but with little hope of success.

The kitchen was on this floor, and passing its door, which was
open a crack, they were observed by the servants, whose thoughts,
communicated to each other by looks, may be roughly reproduced by such
rude symbols as Aha and Oho--symbols which represented and included
their appreciation of the inevitable, their foreknowledge of the
inevitable, and their complete understanding and approval.

"Are you going upstairs?" asked Briggs, as she paused at the foot
of them.

"Yes."

"Which room do you sit in? The drawing-room, or the small yellow
room?"

"In my own room."

So then he couldn't go up with her; so then all he could do was
to wait till she came out again.

He longed to ask her which was her own room--it thrilled him to
hear her call any room in his house her own room--that he might picture
her in it