Mary Ann shook her head but did not speak.
She spoke humbly; her eyes were shy and would not meet his. He winced as he heard the name, though her voice was not unmusical.
"Ah, Mary Ann! and I've been calling you Jane all along, Mary Ann what?"
She seemed confused and flushed a little.
He smiled. "Seems a sort of white Topsy," he was thinking.
She stood still, holding in her hand the table-cloth she had just folded. Her eyes were downcast, and the glint of sunshine had leapt upon the long lashes.
"Well, Mary Ann, tell your mistress there is a piano coming. It will stand over there--you'll have to move the sideboard somewhere else."
"A piano!" Mary Ann opened her eyes, and Lancelot saw that they were large and pathetic. He could not see the colour for the glint of sunshine that touched them with false fire.
"Yes; I suppose it will have to come up through the window, these staircases are so beastly narrow. Do you never have a stout person in the house, I wonder?"
"Oh, yes, sir. We had a lodger here last year as was quite a fat man."
"And did he come up through the window by a pulley?"
He smiled at the image, and expected to see Mary Ann smile in response. He was disappointed when she did not; it was not only that her stolidity made his humour seem feeble--he half wanted to see how she looked when she smiled.
"Oh, dear, no," said Mary Ann; "he lived on the ground floor!"
"Oh!" murmured Lancelot, feeling the last sparkle taken from his humour. He was damped to the skin by Mary Ann's platitudinarian style of conversation. Despite its prettiness, her face was dulness incarnate.
"Anyhow, remember to take in the piano if I'm out," he said tartly. "I suppose you've _seen_ a piano--you'll know it from a kangaroo?"
"Oh, come, that's something. There is some civilisation in Baker's Terrace after all. But are you quite sure?" he went on, the teasing instinct getting the better of him. "Because, you know, you've never seen a kangaroo."
Mary Ann's face lit up a little. "Oh, yes, I have, sir; it came to the village fair when I was a girl."
"Oh, indeed!" said Lancelot, a little staggered; "what did it come there for--to buy a new pouch?"
"Ah, in a circus. Then, perhaps, you can _play_ the piano, too."