There was something in the tone in which this was said which rasped upon Myles’s feelings--a calm superiority which he felt to be extremely needless. ‘Then we may expect Mr. Mallory to come and take possession some time soon?’ Wilson hailed the news as if it were a personal favour. ‘I expect so. I do not know the exact time; but of course everything will be ready for him?’ ‘Will _he_ be ready for everything?’ thought Myles, with strong contempt; his old spite--it deserves no nobler name--against the absent, unknown Sebastian Mallory rose angrily to the surface again. ‘Our _master_, indeed!’ he reflected angrily. ‘I wonder if he’s ever proved himself his own master yet?’ Wilson, by an unlucky combination of circumstances, was at this moment inspired to turn pointedly to Myles and remark: ‘Now, Myles, do you hear what Madam Mallory says? I told you the master was coming, and you wouldn’t believe me.’ ‘It remains to be seen whether “master” is the right word to use,’ said Myles, with deliberation. ‘In this case I have my doubts about it.’ He bent to his book once more, but not before he had seen the stony stare in the light blue eyes of Mrs. Mallory, and the gaze of haughty astonishment upon her pale, high-featured face--a stare which seemed to say, ‘I have seen human nature in many obtrusive and ill-bred aspects, but never in one which so much required putting into its proper place as this.’ Myles smiled rather grimly to himself; he hated to exchange such civilities with any one, most of all with a woman, but his spirit could ill brook the unquestionably haughty and supercilious manner of Mrs. Mallory, and the profuse mouthing of the word ‘master’ by Wilson’s complaisant lips. Myles had, up to now, utterly refused to call any man master, and he was not going to begin it in the case of a man whom he had never seen; and to whom local report gave anything but a decided or master-like character. ‘There’s no call for you to be so rude,’ said the cashier, shocked and reproachful. Myles turned to him. ‘Will you understand,’ said he, with lips that had grown tight, ‘that a man can’t both do arithmetic and talk?’ ‘Who _is_ the young man?’ inquired Mrs. Mallory of the discomfited Wilson. ‘You must excuse him, ’m. He’s one of the foremen: he knows no better.’ Myles made no sort of comment upon this apology, content that they should say what they liked about it, so long as they did not require him to acknowledge an unknown ‘master.’ Mrs. Mallory, after another and a prolonged stare of the said haughty astonishment, which stare wasted itself upon the back of the delinquent, swept away, leaving Myles with his lips twisted into a fine sneer--an expression to which they were wont too readily to bend. * * * * * Myles’s temper had assuredly not been improved by the occurrences of the morning. It was destined to be yet more severely tried before his return to work in the afternoon.