"I was sure something would happen when I dreamed of suffrigettes this mornin'. An' that comes of playin' pranks, Mr. Trenholme. If it wasn't for that alarm clock----"
"Oh, come, Eliza," he broke in. "An alarm clock isn't a Gatling gun. Your association of ideas is faulty. There is much in common between the clatter of an alarm clock and the suffragist cause, but all the ladies promised not to endanger life, you know."
"Anyhow, Mr. Fenley is dead as a doornail," said Eliza firmly.
"Too bad. I take back all the hard things I said about him, and I'm sure you do the same."
"Yes. Didn't you say all the Fenleys were rubbish? One of them, at any rate, was wrongly classified."
"This unfortunate banker, of course," he said.
"I'd a notion you meant Miss Sylvia. She's pretty as a picter--prettier than some picters I've seen--and folk speak well of her. But she's not a Fenley."
At any other time the artist would have received that thrust _en tierce_ with a _riposte_; at present, Eliza's facts were more interesting than her wit.
"Who is the lady you are speaking of?" he asked guardedly.
"Mr. Fenley's ward, Miss Sylvia Manning. They say she's rich. Pore young thing! Some schemin' man will turn her head, I'll go bail, an' all for the sake of her brass."
"Most likely a one-legged gunner, name of Jim."
"Well, it won't be a two-legged painter, name of Jack!" And Eliza bounced out.
Now, Mary of the curl papers, having occasion to go upstairs while Trenholme was eating, peeped through the open door of the room which he had converted into a studio. She saw a picture on the easel, and the insatiable curiosity of her class led her to examine it. Even a country kitchen maid came under its spell instantly. After a pause of mingled admiration and shocked prudery, she sped to the kitchen.
"Seein' is believin'," quoted Eliza, mounting the stairs in her turn. She gazed at the drawing brazenly, with hands resting on hips and head cocked sidewise like an inquisitive hen's.
Back in the kitchen again, she announced firmly to Mary--
She put the Stilton on the table with a determined air.
"You don't know anything about Miss Sylvia Manning, don't you?" she said, with calm guile.
"Never heard the lady's name before you mentioned it," said Trenholme.