Iris hung her head. She had done something wrong again.
“It was after he told me his baby was ill,” she said; “I told him about Dottie being ill, and how many brothers and sisters I had, and their names and ages, and then he told me about his children.”
“And what possible interest could that be to you?” asked Mrs Fotheringham. “You appear to have very strange tastes. Pray, remember for the future that I object to your talking in this familiar way to Moore, or to any of the servants. Also, that there is nothing I detest so much as hearing about people’s sick sisters, and sick babies, and so on. Everyone near me appears to have a sick relative just now, and to neglect their work in consequence.”
So Moore’s baby was a forbidden subject now as well as Miss Munnion’s sister, Diana. It was a new thing to Iris to keep silence about what was passing in her mind, and a hundred times in the day she was on the very edge of some indiscreet remark. She managed to check herself before it came out, but it was really very difficult and tiresome.
“At any rate,” she said to herself, “there’s nothing we mus’n’t talk about at home; and though we do all talk at once and make a great noise, it’s much better than not talking at all.”
Nevertheless the conversation had made some impression on Mrs Fotheringham, for the next day, after studying Iris in silence for some time, she said suddenly:
“Were you sorry not to go to the seaside after Lottie was ill?”
“Lottie?” said Iris; “oh, you mean Dottie. Her real name is Dorothy, you know, only she’s so small, and round, and pudgy, Max says she’s like a full stop. So she’s always called Dottie.”
“You’ve not answered my question,” said Mrs Fotheringham.
“Why, of course we were all dreadfully sorry,” answered Iris. “We did go once, but I’m the only one who remembers what it was like, because the others were too small.”