It was such a relief to her to be alone at last!  For one thing, though Timmy and Tom both loved her dearly, their love never suggested to them that it must be disagreeable to her to hear them constantly bickering the one with the other, and they would have been surprised indeed had they known how their teasing squabbles had added to the strain and fatigue of serving the elaborate dinner she had just cooked.

She felt spent, in body and in mind, and in the mood when a woman craves, above all things, for solitude.

“Look here, Betty, can’t I do anything to help?”

She started violently, and gave a little cry, while the stem of the wine-glass she held in her hand snapped in two.  But Radmore, to her relief, did not notice the little accident.

“There isn’t anything to do, thank you.”  She tried to speak composedly and pleasantly.  “I’m going to leave most of the washing-up to the woman who comes in every morning to help us.”

“Then why don’t you come into the drawing-room now?  I heard what Timmy said—­and it’s quite true!”

“What Timmy said just now?” She turned and looked at him, puzzled.

Godfrey Radmore, in his well-cut dress clothes and the small, but perfect, pearl studs in the shirt of which she had heard Jack openly envy the make and cut, seemed an incongruous figure in the Old Place scullery.

He blundered on.  “Timmy said that you look as if you had been at a fancy dress ball as a cook.  He ought to have said ‘cordon bleu,’ for I’ve never eaten a better dinner!”

And then to his aghast surprise, Betty sat down on one of the wooden chairs near the table where she had been standing and burst into tears.  “I don’t want to be a ‘cordon bleu,’” she sobbed.  “I hate cooking—­and everything connected with cooking.”  Then, feeling ashamed of herself, she pulled a clean handkerchief out of her apron pocket, and dabbed her eyes.  “I’m just tired out, that’s what it is!” she exclaimed, trying to smile.  “We had a worrying half-hour, thinking the fish was not going to arrive.  You see, Janet dislikes poor Mrs. Crofton so much that she suddenly made up her mind that it was her duty to kill the fatted calf, and in such a case I have to do the killing!”

“It’s such a waste for you to be doing the things you are doing now.”  He spoke with a touch of anger in his voice.  “Why, you and I hardly ever see one another!  After all, even if you’ve forgotten the old times, I often remember them—­I mean the times when you and I and George were so much together and such good pals.  I love every brick of Old Place because of those days.”  He was speaking with deep feeling now.  “Sometimes I feel as if I should like to run away—­it’s all so different here from what it used to be.”

He saw a kind, moved, understanding look come over her eyes, and firm, generous mouth, and quickly, man-like, he pressed his advantage.

“Look here,” he said coaxingly, “don’t you think we might hit on some kind of compromise?  Won’t you allow me just to get some sort of temporary housekeeper who can look after things while poor Nanna is laid up?”