“I was not aware that it had gone so far as that,” said Miss Trotter quietly, “although his admiration for her was well known, especially to his doctor, at whose request I selected her to especially attend to your brother.”

“The doctor is a fool,” broke in Mr. Calton abruptly.  “He only thought of keeping Chris quiet while he finished his job.”

“And really, Mr. Calton,” continued Miss Trotter, ignoring the interruption, “I do not see what right I have to interfere with the matrimonial intentions of any guest in this house, even though or—­as you seem to put it—­because the object of his attentions is in its employ.”

Mr. Calton stared—­angrily at first, and then with a kind of wondering amazement that any woman—­above all a housekeeper—­should take such a view.  “But,” he stammered, “I thought you—­you—­looked after the conduct of those girls.”

“I’m afraid you’ve assumed too much,” said Miss Trotter placidly.  “My business is to see that they attend to their duties here.  Frida Jansen’s duty was—­as I have just told you—­to look after your brother’s room.  And as far as I understand you, you are not here to complain of her inattention to that duty, but of its resulting in an attachment on your brother’s part, and, as you tell me, an intention as to her future, which is really the one thing that would make my ’looking after her conduct’ an impertinence and interference!  If you had come to tell me that he did not intend to marry her, but was hurting her reputation, I could have understood and respected your motives.”

Mr. Calton felt his face grow red and himself discomfited.  He had come there with the firm belief that he would convict Miss Trotter of a grave fault, and that in her penitence she would be glad to assist him in breaking off the match.  On the contrary, to find himself arraigned and put on his defense by this tall, slim woman, erect and smartly buckramed in logic and whalebone, was preposterous!  But it had the effect of subduing his tone.

“You don’t understand,” he said awkwardly yet pleadingly.  “My brother is a fool, and any woman could wind him round her finger.  She knows it.  She knows he is rich and a partner in the Roanoke Ledge.  That’s all she wants.  She is not a fit match for him.  I’ve said he was a fool—­but, hang it all! that’s no reason why he should marry an ignorant girl—­a foreigner and a servant—­when he could do better elsewhere.”

“This would seem to be a matter between you and your brother, and not between myself and my servant,” said Miss Trotter coldly.  “If you cannot convince him, your own brother, I do not see how you expect me to convince her, a servant, over whom I have no control except as a mistress of her work, when, on your own showing, she has everything to gain by the marriage.  If you wish Mr. Bilson, the proprietor, to threaten her with dismissal unless she gives up your brother,”—­Miss Trotter smiled inwardly at the thought of the card-room incident,—­“it seems to me you might only precipitate the marriage.”