couldn't help watching his face as he read it, to enjoy the look of
blank amazement that I thought would appear there when he found that the
little maid-servant he had noticed at the kitchen window of the
next-door villa to his own should be the young lady about whom he had
received this lawyer's letter.

No look of amazement appeared. You might just as well have expected a
marble mantelpiece to look surprised that the chimney was smoking.

He said presently: "I shall be delighted to do as Mr. Chesterton asks."

Then came a lot of business with the introduction of the chief cashier,
with a pass-book, a paying-in-book, a cheque-book, and a big book for
Million's name and address (which she gave care of Josiah Chesterton,
Esq.). Then, when the cashier man had gone out again, Mr. Brace's
marble-mantelpiece manner vanished also. He smiled in a way that seemed
to admit that he did remember there were such things as garden-hoses and
infuriated aunts in the world. But he didn't seem to remember that it
was not my business, but Million's, that had brought us there. For it
was to me that he turned as he said in that pleasant voice of his:
"Well! This does seem rather a long way round to a short way home,
doesn't it?"

At that there came into my mind again the plan I had for Million's
benefit. Million should have her wish. She should marry "the sort of
young gentleman she'd always thought of." I would bring these two
together--the good-looking, young, pleasant-voiced bank manager and the
little shy heiress, who would be extremely pretty and attractive by the
time I'd been her maid for a month.

So I said: "You know, Miss Million's 'home' is no longer at No. 45 in
your road."

He said: "She seems to have some very good friends there, though."

Here the artless Million broke in: "Not me, sir! I never could bear that
aunt of hers," with a nod at me, "and no more couldn't Miss Beatrice,
after I left!"

I tried to nudge Million, but could scarcely do so just under that young
man's interested blue eye. He looked up quickly to me. "Then you have
left?"

I smiled and nodded vaguely, and we sat for a moment in silence, the
tall, morning-coated young manager, and the two girls still so shabbily
dressed, that you wouldn't have dreamt of connecting either of us with
millions. I wasn't going to let him into the situation of mistress and
maid just then. But I condescended to inform him: "Miss Million will be
at the Hotel Cecil after