Flowers would be enough for me, and perhaps a broom and a duster. But then, I'm not a man."
"No," he said, just as calmly. "If you were, you would know that one does not take one's suggestions about these things from a woman."
Even in her assumed character she was not quite prepared for the scant courtesy of his reply, and he inferred from her silence that he had succeeded in quenching her at last. But when he glanced at her over his shoulder, he was rather disconcerted at finding her eyes fixed on his face with an astonished look in them. He was always absent-minded, and when he was not at work he was unobservant as well; and he asked himself doubtfully whether her cheeks had been quite so pink before he made his last remark. Any other man would have noticed long ago that she had not the manner or the air of the ordinary model; but Askett did not trouble to argue the point even for his own satisfaction. She was a little more ladylike than most of them, perhaps, but she resembled the rest of her class in wanting to chatter, and that in itself justified his abruptness. So there was a pause that was a little awkward, and then his model came in — an old man in a slouched hat and a worn brown coat.
"What a musty old subject to choose!" she commented, and got up instantly and walked away to the door.
"Wouldn't you care to wait until Hallaford comes back?" asked her host, a little less morosely. "I can go on working all the same, as long as you don't talk."
"I shouldn't think of it," she said, emphatically. " I am quite sure you wouldn't be able to endure another suggestion from me, and I really couldn't promise not to make one."
He could have sworn that her last words were accompanied by a lightning glance round the room, but her expression, when she
