At this point, Gwendolyn glanced up—­just in time to see Thomas regarding Jane with a broad grin.  And Jane was smiling back at him, her face so suffused with blushes that there was not a freckle to be seen.

Now Jane sighed, and stood looking down with hands folded.  “What good does it do to talk, though,” she observed sadly.  “Day in and day out, day in and day out, I have to dance attendance.”

It was Gwendolyn’s turn to color.  She got down quickly and came forward.

“Sh!” warned Thomas.  He busied himself with laying the silver.

Gwendolyn halted in front of Jane, and lifted a puzzled face.  “But—­but, Jane,” she began defensively, “you don’t ever dance.”

“Now, whatever do you think I was talkin’ about?” demanded Jane, roughly.  “You dance, don’t you, at Monsoor Tellegen’s, of a Saturday afternoon?  Well, so do I when I get a’ evenin’ off,—­which isn’t often, as you well know, Miss.  And now your dinner’s ready.  So eat it, without any more clackin’.”

Gwendolyn climbed upon the plump rounding seat of a white-and-gold chair.

Jane settled down nearby, choosing an upholstered arm-chair—­spacious, comfort-giving.  She lolled in it, at ease but watchful.

“You can’t think how that old butler spies on me,” said Thomas, addressing her.  “He seen the tray when I put it on the dumb-waiter.  And, ‘Miss Royle is havin’ her lunch out,’ he says.  Then would you believe it, he took more’n half my dishes away!”

Jane giggled.  “Potter’s a sharp one,” she declared.  “But, oh, you should’ve been behind a door just now when you-know-who and I had a little understandin’.”

“Eh?” he inquired, working his black brows excitedly.  “How was that?”

Gwendolyn went calmly on with her mutton-broth.  She already knew each detail of the forth-coming recital.

“Well,” began Jane, “she played her usual trick of startin’ off without so much as a word to me, and I just up and give her a tongue-lashin’.”

Gwendolyn’s spoon paused half way to her expectant pink mouth.  She stared at Jane.  “Oh, I didn’t see that,” she exclaimed regretfully.  “Jane, what is a tongue-lashing?”

Jane sat up.  “A tongue-lashin’,” said she, “is what you need, young lady.  Look at the way you’ve spilled your soup!  Take it, Thomas, and serve the rest of the dinner, I ain’t goin’ to allow you to be at the table all day, Miss....  There, Thomas!  That’ll be all the minced chicken she can have.”

“But I took just one little spoonful,” protested Gwendolyn, earnestly.  “I wanted more, but Thomas held it ’way up, and—­”

“Do you want to be sick?” demanded Jane.  “And have a doctor come?”

Gwendolyn raised frightened eyes.  A doctor had been called once in the dim past, when she was a baby, racked by colic and budding teeth.  She did not remember him.  But since the era of short clothes she had been mercifully spared his visits.  “N-n-no!” she faltered.