"What is this room?"
"The houseplace. I have my meals here. I live very primitively. My idea
is----"
"Then your servant may come in at any moment to lay your supper."
I could not say that she seemed nervous or frightened, but the way she
cut me short showed that she was so in reality. I was not offended, for
I am the first to make allowance when rudeness is not intentional. I led
the way hastily into the parlour.
"She never comes in here," I said reassuringly, "after she has once
brought in the lamp. I am supposed to be working, and must not be
disturbed."
"I'm not fit to come in," she said.
And in truth she was not. She was caked with mud and dirt from head to
foot, an appalling figure in the lamplight. The rain dripped from her
hair, her sinister clothing, her whole person. She looked as if she must
have hidden in a wet ditch. I gazed horror-struck at my speckless
matting and pale Oriental rugs. I had never allowed a child or dog in
the house for fear of the matting, except of course my poor Lindo, who
had died a few months previously, and whom I had taught to wipe his feet
on the mat.
A ghost of a smile twitched her grey mouth.
"Is not that the _Times_?" she said. "Spread it out four thick, and lay
it on the floor."