"
"The lady-helps have their own apartment; but I decline to justify
myself."
And Mrs. Purling lapsed into silence. There was friction between them
already.
"Where are you going?" she asked, when lunch was over.
"To the housekeeper's room."
"Harold, I forbid you. It's highly improper--it's absolutely
indelicate."
"She is my cousin; besides there is a _chaperone_, Mrs. Haigh, or I'll
call in the cook."
"Do you mean to set me at defiance?"
"I mean to do what I consider right, even although my views may not
coincide with yours, mother."
For the rest of the day, indeed, Harold never left his newly-found
cousin's side. The heiress fumed and fretted, and scolded, but all in
vain. There was a new kind of masterfulness about her son which for
the moment she was powerless to resist.
"Of course she will dine with us," Harold said. And of course she did,
although Mrs. Purling looked as if she wished every mouthful would
choke her. Of course Harold called her Dolly to her face; was she not
his cousin? Quite as naturally he would have given her a cousinly kiss
when he said good-night, but something in her pure eyes and modest
face restrained him.
Certainly she was the nicest girl he had ever met in his life.
"Where's Doll?" he asked next morning at breakfast.
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