no right to ask her to do--"

"No right!" Exasperated beyond all words, Mrs. Salisbury picked up
her fan, gathered her dragging skirts together, and made a dignified
departure from the room. "No right!" she echoed, more in pity than
anger. "Well, really, I wonder sometimes what we are coming to! No
right to ask my servant, whom I pay thirty-seven and a half dollars
a month, to stop writing letters long enough to clean my sitting
room! Well, right or wrong, we'll see!"

But the cryptic threat contained in the last words was never carried
out. The dinner was perfect, and Owen was back in his old position
as something between a brother and a lover, full of admiring great
laughs for Sandy and boyish confidences. There was not a cloud on
the evening for Mrs. Salisbury. And the question of Justine's
conduct was laid on the shelf.




CHAPTER IV


After the dinner party domestic matters seemed to run even more
smoothly than before, but there was a difference, far below the
surface, in Mrs. Salisbury's attitude toward the new maid. The
mistress found herself incessantly looking for flaws in Justine's
perfectness; for things that Justine might easily have done, but
would not do.