第336章 MISS MINA AND THE GROOM(17)

"One word more, before you go," he said. "If I don't find you more mercifully inclined toward my horses than you seem to be toward your father and mother, you won't remain long in my service. You might have told me you had never heard who your parents were, without speaking as if you didn't care to hear.""May I say a bold word, sir, in my own defense?"He put the question very quietly, but, at the same time, so firmly that he even surprised my aunt. She looked round from the window--then turned back again, and stretched out her hand toward the curtain, intending, as I supposed, to alter the arrangement of it. The groom went on.

"May I ask, sir, why I should care about a father and mother who deserted me? Mind what you are about, my lady!" he cried--suddenly addressing my aunt. "There's a cat in the folds of that curtain; she might frighten you."He had barely said the words before the housekeeper's large tabby cat, taking its noonday siesta in the looped-up fold of the curtain, leaped out and made for the door.

Lady Claudia was, naturally enough, a little perplexed by the man's discovery of an animal completely hidden in the curtain.