the hard way and save a coupla pennies. Well, I go slow, that's all. There's just so many hours. You can't blame me.'
'She wants your hours full,' said Duff.
'She sure don't want to waste any of my time,' cracked Josephine, and Duff risked a laugh.
Josephine took it properly. They were friends.
'It seems to me you do pretty well to keep this house going at all,' said Duff. 'How about Miss Maud? Is she fussy, too?'
'Oh, Miss Maud! If she was the only one, it'd be a cinch. She's easy-going. A little dust don't bother her.'
'If it doesn't bother her, I don't suppose she helps with the dusting, does she?'
'Her?' Josephine laughed. 'She's too lazy.'
'Lazy,' said Duff thoughtfully. 'Is she, really'?' Hesaw a qualm growing on Josephine's face and made a quick retreat to the field of psychological observation. 'Tell me, would a girl rather work for a lazy mistress or for a fairly strict one?'
'Well, I'll tell you. In a way . . .' Josephine pondered. 'I dont know,' she confessed. 'The thing is, if she's lazy and sloppy, you get so's you can't stand it yourself. '
'I see. You feel the responsibility,' Duff said. Whereas, if you're told your duties strictly, you know where you are.'
'Yeah,' said Josephine gratefully, 'that's what I mean. I don t know's I'd like it, working for Miss Maud alone. Even If she is lazy—say, she'd live in a pigsty—she wants plenty of service for herself, just the same. You know what she'll do? She'll yell for me when she's lying on her bed to come upstairs and hand her a pillow that's across the room. That's what she'll do.'
'Tell me,' said Duff. 'suppose she yelled and no one came? Would she get it herself then?'
'I'll never know,' Josephine said bitterly. 'Boy, when she yells, she yells.'
She fell into a moody silence. Duff said, 'There's a handyman, isn't there? He does the heavy work?'
'Oh, sure.' Josephine sloshed water lackadaisically in the sink.
'Where does he sleep?'
Josephine raised startled eyes. 'In the barn,' she said, her voice losing body. She turned her back then.
'I was just wondering if he came home drunk last night and went down and did things to the furnace.'
'Nope,' said Josephine. 'My room's off the kitchen. The back door makes a racket if it's opened. I'd have heard him. Besides, he don't get drunk so much.'
Josephine was being less communicative, even though she said words.
'You were up last night?' Duff asked.
'I never heard anything until Fred went pounding down the cellar stairs. That woke me. Then I got up.' Josephine was nearly brief.
Duff rose. 'I like to chat,' he said, 'and thanks for the coffee.'
'You're welcome,' said Josephine. Her eyes were uneasy. They fixed on Duffs with some appeal. She fingered the tiny gold cross that hiing around her neck. 'I been here fourteen years,' she said huskily, 'and I dunno where to go to get another job.'
Was it apology? It seemed to be. For what? For being a doormat? For being a drudge?
Duff waited quiedy, sending her his steady friendliness.
'Some things ain't right,' Josephine said, and her eyes fell and her big pink hand clenched and covered the cross.
Duff saw, then, that the handyman was coming along the back of the house, outside. He would get no more from Josephine. He stepped quickly to the back door, relying on her essential meekness to watch him go without requiring an explanation.
When Mr. Johnson found Duff waiting on the narrow stoop, he stopped with one foot in a broken shoe resting on the bottom step and looked up. His unfathomable black eyes were as rudely without self-consciousness, as insulting in their complete lack of personal curiosity, as the child's had been on the train. Duff sent back his own synthetic innocence.
'You want to say something?' inquired Mr. Johnson without a flicker.
'About the furnace here,' Duff purred. 'Do you remember what time you banked the fure last night?'
'Ten o'clock, close to.'
'It was all right then, was it?'
'Yeah.' Mr. Johnson spat into the dust, but his eyes came back as boldly as ever.
Duff tried a quick carelessness. 'Who closed all those dampers afterward?'
No surprise or pretense of surprise showed on the dark face. The big shoiilders denied knowledge. Duff smiled his most enigmatical smile, but the black eyes continued to take him for a total enigma in which they were not much interested.
'I wonder, did you see the lamp fall a little earlier in the evening?' Duff said.
'Naw.'
