“What do you think is the best treatment for urticaria?” she propounded with a highly professional manner.

It appeared to be a catch-question.  The young man knotted his brows.  Finally a gleam of light seemed to come to him.

“Urticaria frequently needs—­er—­thinning,” he announced decisively.

“Needs scratching you mean!” Miss Cornelia rose with a snort of disdain and faced him.  “Young man, urticaria is hives, rubeola is measles, and alopecia is baldness!” she thundered.  She waited a moment for his defense.  None came.

“Why did you tell me you were a professional gardener?” she went on accusingly.  “Why have you come here at this hour of night pretending to be something you’re not?”

By all standards of drama the young man should have wilted before her wrath, Instead he suddenly smiled at her, boyishly, and threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat.

“I know I shouldn’t have done it!” he confessed with appealing frankness.  “You’d have found me out anyhow!  I don’t know anything about gardening.  The truth is,” his tone grew somber, “I was desperate!  I had to have work!”

The candor of his smile would have disarmed a stonier-hearted person than Miss Cornelia.  But her suspicions were still awake.

“’That’s all, is it?”

“That’s enough when you’re down and out.”  His words had an unmistakable accent of finality.  She couldn’t help wanting to believe him, and yet, he wasn’t what he had pretended to be—­and this night of all nights was no time to take people on trust!

“How do I know you won’t steal the spoons?” she queried, her voice still gruff.

“Are they nice spoons?” he asked with absurd seriousness.

She couldn’t help smiling at his tone.  “Beautiful spoons.”

Again that engaging, boyish manner of his touched something in her heart.

“Spoons are a great temptation to me, Miss Van Gorder—­but if you’ll take me, I’ll promise to leave them alone.”

“That’s extremely kind of you,” she answered with grim humor, knowing herself beaten.  She went over to ring for Billy.

Lizzie took the opportunity to gain her ear.

“I don’t trust him, Miss Neily!  He’s too smooth!” she whispered warningly.

Miss Cornelia stiffened.  “I haven’t asked for your opinion, Lizzie,” she said.

But Lizzie was not to be put off by the Van Gorder manner.

“Oh,” she whispered, “you’re just as bad as all the rest of ’em.  A good-looking man comes in the door and your brains fly out the window!”

Miss Cornelia quelled her with a gesture and turned back to the young man.  He was standing just where she had left him, his cap in his hands—­but, while her back had been turned, his eyes had made a stealthy survey of the living-room—­a survey that would have made it plain to Miss Cornelia, if she had seen him, that his interest in the Fleming establishment was not merely the casual interest of a servant in his new place of abode.  But she had not seen and she could have told nothing from his present expression.