Rufus smiled at her admiringly. "It's hard for me to be formal with Dick Melody's girl," he said. "What shall I call you? My lady? That's all right, that's what you are. My lady. Another cup o' coffee please, my lady. It tastes extra good from your fair hands. We'll do away with this rocky tea-set, too. You're goin' to have eggshell China if you want it; and of course you do want it, you little princess." His extreme air of proprietorship had several times during this interview convinced Geraldine that her host had been drinking. In spite of his odious frank admiration and the glimpses that he gave of some disquieting power, Geraldine scorned him too much to be afraid of him, and while she doubted increasingly that it would be possible for her to remain here, she determined to see what the morning would bring forth. The man's passion for acquisition, evidenced by his showmanship of his accumulations, might again absorb him after the first flush of her novelty wore off. She would enter into the work of the house, she would never again sit _tete-a-tete_ with him, and he should find it impossible to see her alone. His mother had warned her that he was terrible when he was angry, and Geraldine suspected that the mother always felt the brunt of his wrath. She must be careful, therefore, not to make the lot of that mother harder while endeavoring to ease it. As soon as she could, Geraldine escaped to the kitchen where she found Mrs. Carder at her wet sink. "I asked you to wait for me, Mrs. Carder," she said. The old woman looked up from her steaming pan, her countenance full of trouble. "Now, Rufus don't want you to do anything like this, Miss Melody, and Pete's helpin' me, you see." Geraldine turned and saw a boy who was carrying a heavy, steaming kettle from the stove to the sink, and she met his eyes fixed upon her. She recognized him at once as the driver of the motor in which she and her host had come from the station. As the chauffeur he had appeared like a boy of ordinary size, but now she saw that his arms were long and his legs short and bowed, and in height he would barely reach her shoulder. The dwarf had a long, solemn, tanned face and a furtive, sullen eye. Geraldine remembered Rufus Carder's rough tone as he had summoned him at the station. He was perhaps a wretched, lonely creature like herself. She met his look with a smile that, directed toward his master, would have sent Rufus into the seventh heaven of complacence. "I have met Pete already," she said, kindly. "He drove us up from the station. I'm glad you are helping Mrs. Carder, Pete. She seems to have too much to do." The boy did not reply, but he appeared unable to remove his eyes from Geraldine's kind look, and careless of where he was going he stumbled against the sink.