He was turning over in his mind the possible results of telling Penhallow what was going on under his roof when a footfall sounded on the flagged passage, and Loveday Trewithian came into the room, carrying the lamp from her mistress’s bedroom.

Jimmy scowled at her, but said nothing. Loveday set the lamp down on the table beside the others, and turned, smiling, towards him. Her warm brown eyes flickered over the shelf; he knew her well enough to be sure that the absence of her own shoes from the row had not escaped her, but she gave no sign. She watched him, at work on Bart’s second boot, and said presently in her rich, soft voice: “You do polish them clean-off, Jimmy.”

He was as impervious to her flattery as to the seductive note in her voice. “I won’t lay hand or brush to yours,” he said unamiably. “You can take ’em away.”

Her smile grew. She said gently: “You don’t need to be so set against me, my dear. I won’t do you any harm.”

He made a sound of derision. “You do me harm! That’s a good ’un!”

Her smile became a little saucy. “Aw, my dear, you’re jealous!”

“I ain’t got nothing to be jealous of you for, you dressy bit! If I was to tell the old man the tricks you’re up to with that Bart you’d smile ’t ’other side of your face!”

“Mister Bart!” she corrected mildly.

Jimmy sniffed. He turned his shoulder on her, but watched her out of the corners of his eyes as she bent to pick up her shoes from under the shelf.

“To be sure, I do be forgetting you’re in a way related, my dear,” she murmured.

The taunt left Jimmy unmoved. He said nothing, and she went away, carrying her shoes, and laughing a little. It annoyed him that she showed no resentment of his churlishness; he thought she was a poor-spirited girl, or else an uncommon deep ‘un.