for permission, Suzette
flounced into the small salon.

I could hear her shrill little voice asking Miss Sharp to be so good as
to give her an envelope--She must write an address! I watched her--Miss
Sharp handed her one, and went on with her work.

Suzette returned, closing the door, without temper, behind her.

"Wouff!" she announced to me--"No anxiety there--an _Anglaise_--not
appetizing--not a _fausse maigre_ like us, as thin as a hairpin! Nothing
for thou Nicholas--and _Mon Dieu!_--she does the family washing by her
hands--I know! mine look like that when I have taken one of my
fortnights at the sea!"

"You think it is washing?--I was wondering--."

"Does she take off her glasses ever, Nicholas?"

"No perhaps she has weak light eyes. One never can tell!"

Suzette was not yet quite at ease about it all--. I was almost driven to
ask Miss Sharp to remove her glasses to reassure her.

Women are jealous even of one-legged half blind men! I would like to ask
my cook if he has the same trouble--but--Oh! I wish anything mattered!

Suzette showed affection for me after this--and even passion! I would be
quite good-looking she said--when I should be finished. Glass eyes were
so well made now--"and as for legs!--truly my little cabbage, they are
as nimble as a goat's!"

Of course I felt comforted when she had gone.

* * * * *

The hot days pass--Miss Sharp has not asked for a holiday, she plods
along, we do a great deal of work--and she writes all my letters. And
there are days when I know I am going to be busy with my friends, when I
tell her she need not come--there was a whole week at the end of July.
Her manner never alters, but when Burton attempted to pay her she
refused to take the cheque.

"I did not earn that" she said.

I was angry with Burton because he did not insist.

"It was just, Sir Nicholas."

"No, it was not, Burton--If she did not work here, she was out of pocket
not working anywhere else. You will please add the wretched sum to this
week's salary."

Burton nodded stubbornly, so I spoke to Miss Sharp myself.

"It was my business as to whether I worked or did not work for a
week--therefore you are owed payment in any case--that is logic----."

A queer red came into her transparent skin, her mouth shut firmly--I
knew that I had convinced her, and that yet for some reason she hated
having to take the money.

She did not even answer, just bowed with that