Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/137

Rh more respectfully than I 'd heard him speak to anyone yet, "it is my fault ma'mselle is dressed as she is."

"What on earth is he going to say?" I wondered wildly, as he paused an instant for Lady Turnour's consent, which perhaps an amazed silence gave. I believed that he did n't know himself what to say.

"I wanted your ladyship's maid, when she had nothing else to do, to put on her out-of-door things and let me make a sketch of her for an illustrated newspaper I sometimes draw for. Naturally she did n't care for her face to go into the paper, so she insisted upon a veil. My sketch is to be called, 'The Motor Maid,' and I shall get half a guinea for it, I hope, of which it 's my intention to hand ma'mselle five shillings for obliging me. I hope your ladyship does n't object to my earning something extra now and then, so long as it does n't interfere with work?"

"Well," remarked Lady Turnour, taken aback by this extraordinary plea, as well she might have been, "I don't like to tell a person out and out that I don't believe a word he says, but I do go as far as this: I 'll believe you when I see you making the sketch. And as for earning extra money, I should have thought Sir Samuel paid good enough wages for you to be willing to smoke a pipe and rest when your day's work was done, instead of gadding about corridors gossiping with lady's-maids who 've no business to be outside their own room. But if you 're so greedy after money—and if you want me to take Elise's word ⸺"

"I 'll just begin the sketch in your ladyship's presence, if I may be excused," said Mr. Dane, briskly. And to