smart answer,
understand Bradshaw and order a possible combination at a restaurant.
What impressed him was Victoria's coolness, the balance of her unhurried
mind. Now and then he caught her reading curious books, such as
_Smiles's Self-Help_, _Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to his Son_ and
_Thus Spake Zara . . . Something_, by a man with a funny name; but this
was all part of her character and of its novelty. He did not worry to
scratch the surface of this brain; virgin soils did not interest him in
the mental sense. Sometimes, when he enounced a political opinion or
generalised on the problems of the day as stated in the morning paper,
he would find, a little uneasily, her eyes fixed on him with a strangely
interested look. But her eyelids would at once be lowered and her lips
would part, showing a little redder and moister, causing his heart to
beat quicker, and he would forget his perplexity as he took her hand and
stroked her arm with gentle insistence.

Cairns dragged Snoo and Poo up the steps of the little house still
grumbling, panting and protesting that, as drawing-room dogs, they
objected to exercise in any form. He had a latchkey, but always
refrained from using it. He liked to ring the bell, to feel like a
guest. It would have been commonplace to enter _his_ hall and hang up
_his_ hat on _his_ peg. That would have been home and home only. To ask
whether Mrs Ferris was in was more adventurous, for she might be out.
And if she expected him, then it was an assignation; adventure again.

The unimposing Mary let him in. For a fraction of a second she looked at
the Major, then at the floor.

'Mrs Ferris in?'

'Yes, sir, Mrs Ferris is in the boudoir.' Mary's voice fell on the last
necessary word like a dropgate. She had been asked a question and
answered it. That was the end of it. Cairns was the master of her
mistress. What respect she owed was paid.

Cairns deposited his hat and coat in Mary's hands. Then, lifting Snoo
under one arm and Poo under the other, both grumbling vigorously and
kicking with their hind legs, he walked to the boudoir and pushed it
open with his shoulder. Victoria was sitting at the little bureau
writing a letter. Cairns watched her for two seconds, rejoicing in the
firm white moulding of her neck, in the dark tendrils of hair clustering
low, dwindling into the central line of down which tells of breeding and
health. Then Victoria turned round sharply.

'Oh,' she said, with a littl