dn't possibly say things like that.

I sat for another second in disconcerted silence, my needle, threaded
with white silk, poised above the nightie.

Then I said: "Tell Miss Million, please, that I will be with her in a
moment."

At the time I didn't mean to go. I meant to sit on, quietly sewing,
where I was until the visitors had gone. Then I could "have it out" with
Million herself afterwards....

But before I put in three more stitches my heart misgave me again.

Poor little Million! In agonies of nervousness! What a shame to let her
down! And supposing that she, in her desperation, came out to fetch me
in!

I put aside my work and hastened across the corridor to my employer's
sitting-room. As I opened the door I heard an unexpected sound. That
sound seemed to take me right back to our tiny kitchen in Putney, when
Aunt Anastasia was out, and Million and I were gossiping together.

Million's laugh!

Surely she couldn't be laughing now, in the middle of her nervousness!

I went in.

A charming picture met me; a picture that might have hung at the Academy
under the title of "Two Strings to Her Bow" or "The Eternal Trio," or
something else appropriate to the grouping of two young men and a pretty
girl.

The girl (Million), black-haired, white-frocked, and smiling, was
sitting on a pink-covered couch, close to one of the young men--the
bigger, more gorgeously dressed one. This was, of course, Mr. James
Burke. He looked quite as effective as he had done in his coaching
get-up. For now he wore a faultless morning-coat and the most
George-Alexandrian of perfectly creased trousers. His head was as
smoothily and glossily black as his own patent-leather boots. "Seen
close to," as Million puts it, he was showily good-looking, especially
about the eyes, with which he was gazing into the little heiress's
flushed face. They were of that death-dealing compound, deep blue, with
thick, black lashes. What a pity that those eyes shouldn't have been
bestowed by Providence upon some deserving woman, like myself, instead
of being wasted upon a mere man. But possibly the Honourable James
didn't consider them waste. He'd made good use of them and of his
persuasive voice, and of his time generally, with Miss Million, the
Sausage King's niece!

They were sitting there, leaving the other poor young man looking quite
out of it, talking as if they were the greatest friends. As to Million's
nervous terror, I can only say, in h