Now, here comes the point of all this palaver. Young Master
Randall used also to come to my house. Now and then by chance they
met there. They were good boy and girl friends.
I want to make it absolutely clear that her acquaintance with
Randall was not any vulgar picking-up-in-the-street affair.
When she left school, her father made her his book-keeper,
secretary, confidential clerk. Anybody turning into the office to
summon Gedge to repair a roof or a burst boiler had a preliminary
interview with Phyllis. Young Randall, taking over the business of
the upkeep of his mother's house, gradually acquired the habit of
such preliminary interviews. The whole imbroglio was very simple,
very natural. They had first met at my own rich cake and jam-puff
bespread tea-table. When Randall went into the office to speak,
presumably, about a defective draught in the kitchen range, and
really about things quite different, the ethics of the matter
depended entirely on Randall's point of view. Their meetings had
been contrived by no unmaidenly subterfuge on the part of Phyllis.
She knew him to be above her in social station. She kept him off
as long as she could.
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