So
she's setting a trap for you, and she expects you to fall into it while
she's away, and if you do. . . ."
"Impossible!"
"Oh, trust _me_, your ladyship. I haven't been keeping my ears closed
while your ladyship has been away, and if that chatterbox of a maid of
hers hadn't been such a fool I suppose she would have been left behind
to watch. But there's somebody else in the house who thinks she has a
grievance against you, and if listening at keyholes will do
anything . . . Hush!"
Price stopped suddenly with her finger to her lip, and then going on
tiptoe to the door she opened it with a jerk, when the little
housekeeper was to be seen rising to an upright position while
pretending that she had slipped.
"I only came to ask if her ladyship had lunched?" she said.
I answered that I had not, and then told her (so as to give her no
further excuse for hanging about me) that in future she was to take her
orders from Price--an announcement which caused my maid to stand several
inches taller in her shoes, and sent the housekeeper hopping downstairs
with her beak in the air like an injured cockatoo.
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