"Young woman," returned Mr. Dyceworthy with polite severity, "I regret to see that your manners stand in sore need of improvement. Your master's absence is of no importance to me. It is with the Fröken Thelma I desire to speak."
Britta laughed and tossed her rough brown curls back from her forehead. Mischievous dimples came and went at the corners of her mouth--indications of suppressed fun.
"The Fröken is out too," she said demurely. "It's time she had a little amusement; and the gentlemen treat her as if she were a queen!"
Mr. Dyceworthy started, and his red visage became a trifle paler.
"Gentlemen? What gentlemen?" he demanded with some impatience.
Britta's inward delight evidently increased.
"The gentlemen from the yacht, of course," she said. "What other gentlemen are there?" This with a contemptuous up-and-down sort of look at the Lutheran minister's portly form. "Sir Philip Errington was here with his friend yesterday evening and stayed a long time--and today a fine boat with four oars came to fetch the master and Fröken Thelma, and they are all gone for a sail to the Kaa Fjord or some other place near here--I cannot remember the name. And I am SO glad!" went on Britta, clasping her plump hands in ecstasy. "They are the grandest, handsomest Herren I have ever seen, and one can tell they think wonders of the Fröken--nothing is too good for her!"
Mr. Dyceworthy's face was the picture of dismay. This was a new turn to the course of events, and one, more over, that he had never once contemplated. Britta watched him amusedly.
"Will you leave any message for them when they return?" she asked.
"No," said the minister dubiously. "Yet, stay; yes! I will! Tell the Fröken that I have found something which belongs to her, and that when she wishes to have it, I will myself bring it."
Britta looked cross. "If it is hers you have no business to keep it," she said brusquely. "Why not leave it,--whatever it is,--with me?"
Mr. Dyceworthy regarded her with a bland and lofty air.
"I trust no concerns of mine or hers to the keeping of a paid domestic," he said. "A domestic, moreover, who deserts the ways of her own people,--who hath dealings with the dwellers in darkness,--who even bringeth herself to forget much of her own native tongue, and who devoteth herself to--"