Geraldine still regarded him with an unfaltering gaze. "We are
strangers," she said. "I wish you not to call me 'little girl!'"

Rufus smiled at her admiringly. "It's hard for me to be formal with Dick
Melody's girl," he said. "What shall I call you? My lady? That's all
right, that's what you are. My lady. Another cup o' coffee please, my
lady. It tastes extra good from your fair hands. We'll do away with this
rocky tea-set, too. You're goin' to have eggshell China if you want it;
and of course you do want it, you little princess."

His extreme air of proprietorship had several times during this
interview convinced Geraldine that her host had been drinking. In spite
of his odious frank admiration and the glimpses that he gave of some
disquieting power, Geraldine scorned him too much to be afraid of him,
and while she doubted increasingly that it would be possible for her to
remain here, she determined to see what the morning would bring forth.
The man's passion for acquisition, evidenced by his showmanship of his
accumulations, might again absorb him after the first flush of her
novelty wore off. She would enter into the work of the house, she would
never again sit _tete-a-tete_ with him, and he should find it impossible
to see her alone. His mother had warned her that he was terrible when he
was angry, and Geraldine suspected that the mother always felt the brunt
of his wrath. She must be careful, therefore, not to make the lot of
that mother harder while endeavoring to ease it.

As soon as she could, Geraldine escaped to the kitchen where she found
Mrs. Carder at her wet sink.

"I asked you to wait for me, Mrs. Carder," she said.

The old woman looked up from her steaming pan, her countenance full of
trouble.

"Now, Rufus don't want you to do anything like this, Miss Melody, and
Pete's helpin' me, you see."

Geraldine turned and saw a boy who was carrying a heavy, steaming kettle
from the stove to the sink, and she met his eyes fixed upon her. She
recognized him at once as the driver of the motor in which she and her
host had come from the station. As the chauffeur he had appeared like a
boy of ordinary size, but now she saw that his arms were long and his
legs short and bowed, and in height he would barely reach her shoulder.

The dwarf had a long, solemn, tanned face and a furtive, sullen eye.
Geraldine remembered Rufus Carder's rough tone as he had summoned him at
the station. He was perhaps a wretched, lo