She smiled when she saw me in the doorway, and said, with the little anxious pucker between her eyes that was so childish, “Don’t you think peonies are better cut down at this time of year?” She took a folded handkerchief from her bag and dabbed at her face, where there was no sign of dust to mar its old freshness.  “It gives the lilies a better chance, my dear.”

I led her into the house, and she produced a gay bit of knitting, a baby afghan, by the signs.  She smiled at me over it.

“I am always one baby behind,” she explained and fell to work rapidly.  She had lovely hands, and I suspected them of being her one vanity.

Maggie was serving tea with her usual grudging reluctance, and I noticed then that when she was in the room Miss Emily said little or nothing.  I thought it probable that she did not approve of conversing before servants, and would have let it go at that, had I not, as I held out Miss Emily’s cup, caught her looking at Maggie.  I had a swift impression of antagonism again, of alertness and something more.  When Maggie went out, Miss Emily turned to me.

“She is very capable, I fancy.”

“Very.  Entirely too capable.”

“She looks sharp,” said Miss Emily.  It was a long time since I had heard the word so used, but it was very apt.  Maggie was indeed sharp.  But Miss Emily launched into a general dissertation on servants, and Maggie’s sharpness was forgotten.

It was, I think, when she was about to go that I asked her about the telephone.

“Telephone?” she inquired.  “Why, no.  It has always done very well.  Of course, after a heavy snow in the winter, sometimes—­”

She had a fashion of leaving her sentences unfinished.  They trailed off, without any abrupt break.

“It rings at night.”

“Rings?”

“I am called frequently and when I get to the phone, there is no one there.”

Some of my irritation doubtless got into my voice, for Miss Emily suddenly drew away and stared at me.

“But—­that is very strange.  I—­”

She had gone pale.  I saw that now.  And quite suddenly she dropped her knitting-bag.  When I restored it to her, she was very calm and poised, but her color had not come back.

“It has always been very satisfactory,” she said.  “I don’t know that it ever—­”

She considered, and began again.  “Why not just ignore it?  If some one is playing a malicious trick on you, the only thing is to ignore it.”

Her hands were shaking, although her voice was quiet.  I saw that when she tried to tie the ribbons of the bag.  And—­I wondered at this, in so gentle a soul—­there was a hint of anger in her tones.  There was an edge to her voice.

That she could be angry was a surprise.  And I found that she could also be obstinate.  For we came to an impasse over the telephone in the next few minutes, and over something so absurd that I was non-plussed.  It was over her unqualified refusal to allow me to install a branch wire to my bedroom.