He paused, smiled more broadly all over his handsome face, and added
these surprising words:

"What's your game, you two?"

"Game!--I beg your pardon!" I said haughtily. (I hope I didn't show how
startled and confused I was. What could he mean by "our game"?)

I gazed up at him, and he gave a short laugh. Then he said: "Is it
because nothing suits a pretty woman better than that kit? Is it just
because you know the man's not born that can resist ye in a cap and
apron?"

I was too utterly taken aback to think of any answer. I thrust the cane
into his hands, and fled back, down the corridor, into my mistress's
room. And, as I went in, I think I heard the Honourable Jim still
laughing.

CHAPTER XIII

MY FIRST "AFTERNOON OUT"

"DON'T you think it's about time you went and had an afternoon out,
Smith?"

This was the remark addressed to me by my employer the morning after the
afternoon of her first tea-party.

For a moment I didn't answer. The fact is I was too angry! This is
absurd, of course. For days I've scolded Million for forgetting our
quick change of positions, and for calling me "Miss" or "Miss Beatrice."
And yet, now that the new heiress is beginning to realise our respective
roles and to call me, quite naturally, by the name which I chose for
myself, I'm foolishly annoyed. I feel the stirring of a rebellious
little thought. "What cheek!"

This must be suppressed.

"You know you did ought to have one afternoon a week," our once
maid-of-all-work reminded me as she sat in a pale-blue glorified
dressing-gown in front of the dressing-table mirror. I had drawn up a
lower chair beside her, and was doing my best with the nails of one of
her still coarse and roughened little hands, gently pushing the
ill-treated skin away from the "half-moons." Million's other hand was
dipped into a clouded marble bowl full of warm, lemon-scented emollient
stuff.

"Here you've been doin' for me for well over the week now, and haven't
taken a minute off for yourself."

"Oh, I haven't wanted one, thanks," I replied rather absently.

I wasn't thinking of what Million was saying. I was pondering rather
helplessly over the whole situation; thinking of Million, of her
childish ignorance and her money, of myself, of that flattering-tongued,
fortune-hunting Irishman who had asked me in the corridor what "our
game" was, of that coach-drive that he intended to take