“No, indeed,” said Bunting quickly.  “I give you my word, I’ve hardly thought of anything else for the last month.”

Daisy had disappeared, and when her father joined her in the passage she was listening, with downcast eyes, to what Joe Chandler was saying.

He was telling her about his real home, of the place where his mother lived, at Richmond—­that it was a nice little house, close to the park.  He was asking her whether she could manage to come out there one afternoon, explaining that his mother would give them tea, and how nice it would be.

“I don’t see why Ellen shouldn’t let me,” the girl said rebelliously.  “But she’s that old-fashioned and pernickety is Ellen—­a regular old maid!  And, you see, Mr. Chandler, when I’m staying with them, father don’t like for me to do anything that Ellen don’t approve of.  But she’s got quite fond of you, so perhaps if you ask her—?” She looked at him, and he nodded sagely.

“Don’t you be afraid,” he said confidently.  “I’ll get round Mrs. Bunting.  But, Miss Daisy”—­he grew very red—­“I’d just like to ask you a question—­no offence meant—­”

“Yes?” said Daisy a little breathlessly.  “There’s father close to us, Mr. Chandler.  Tell me quick; what is it?”

“Well, I take it, by what you said just now, that you’ve never walked out with any young fellow?”

Daisy hesitated a moment; then a very pretty dimple came into her cheek.  “No,” she said sadly.  “No, Mr. Chandler, that I have not.”  In a burst of candour she added, “You see, I never had the chance!”

And Joe Chandler smiled, well pleased.

CHAPTER X

By what she regarded as a fortunate chance, Mrs. Bunting found herself for close on an hour quite alone in the house during her husband’s and Daisy’s jaunt with young Chandler.

Mr. Sleuth did not often go out in the daytime, but on this particular afternoon, after he had finished his tea, when dusk was falling, he suddenly observed that he wanted a new suit of clothes, and his landlady eagerly acquiesced in his going out to purchase it.

As soon as he had left the house, she went quickly up to the drawing-room floor.  Now had come her opportunity of giving the two rooms a good dusting; but Mrs. Bunting knew well, deep in her heart, that it was not so much the dusting of Mr. Sleuth’s sitting-room she wanted to do—­as to engage in a vague search for—­she hardly knew for what.

During the years she had been in service Mrs. Bunting had always had a deep, wordless contempt for those of her fellow-servants who read their employers’ private letters, and who furtively peeped into desks and cupboards in the hope, more vague than positive, of discovering family skeletons.

But now, with regard to Mr. Sleuth, she was ready, aye, eager, to do herself what she had once so scorned others for doing.

Beginning with the bedroom, she started on a methodical search.  He was a very tidy gentleman was the lodger, and his few things, under-garments, and so on, were in apple-pie order.  She had early undertaken, much to his satisfaction, to do the very little bit of washing he required done, with her own and Bunting’s.  Luckily he wore soft shirts.