Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/150

Rh just been pining to have a walk with that young chap. I wonder you didn’t notice how disappointed they both were when you was so set on going along with them to that horrid place."

"D’you really mean that, Ellen?" Bunting looked upset. "I understood Joe to say he liked my company."

"Oh, did you?" said Mrs. Bunting dryly. "I expect he liked it just about as much as we liked the company of that old cook who would go out with us when we was courting. It always was a wonder to me how the woman could force herself upon two people who didn’t want her."

"But I’m Daisy’s father, and an old friend of Chandler," said Bunting remonstratingly. "I’m quite different from that cook. She was nothing to us, and we was nothing to her."

"She’d have liked to be something to you, I make no doubt," observed his Ellen, shaking her head, and her husband smiled, a little foolishly.

By this time they were back in their nice, cosy sitting-room, and a feeling of not altogether unpleasant lassitude stole over Mrs. Bunting. It was a comfort to have Daisy out of her way for a bit. The girl, in some ways, was very wide awake and inquisitive, and she had early betrayed what her stepmother thought to be a very unseemly and silly curiosity concerning the lodger. "You might just let me have one peep at him, Ellen?" she had pleaded, only that morning. But Ellen had shaken her head. "No, that I won’t! He’s a very quiet gentleman; but he knows exactly what he likes, and he don’t like anyone but me waiting on him. Why, even your father’s hardly seen him."