"
He smiled provisionally in temporizing with the riddle. "You women are
wonderful, nowadays, for the work you do."
"Oh, but," she protested, nervously, anxiously, "it isn't good work that
I'm going to do--I understand what you mean--it's work for a living.
I've no business to be arriving with an invited guest, but it seemed to
be a question of arriving or not at the time when I was due."
IX.
Verrian stared at her now from a visage that was an entire blank, though
behind it conjecture was busy, and he was asking himself whether his
companion was some new kind of hair-dresser, or uncommonly cultivated
manicure, or a nursery governess obeying a hurry call to take a place in
Mrs. Westangle's household, or some sort of amateur housekeeper arriving
to supplant a professional. But he said nothing.
Miss Shirley said, with a distress which was genuine, though he perceived
a trace of amusement in it, too, "I see that I will have to go on."
"Oh, do!" he made out to utter.
"I am going to Mrs. Westangle's as a sort of mistress of the revels. The
business is so new that it hasn't got its name yet, but if I fail it
won't need any. I invented it on a hint I got from a girl who undertakes
the floral decorations for parties. I didn't see why some one shouldn't
furnish suggestions for amusements, as well as flowers.
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