'Do you never want to be quiet, Mina?' asked Gladys, with the gleam of an amused smile.
'No, never. I'm not one of your pensive maidens. One silent member in a family is enough, or it would stagnate. Clara sustains the dignity, I the life, of the house, my dear. Oh, I wish somebody would come in. I guess half a score of idle young women in the other houses of this Crescent are consumed with the same desire. But nobody ever does come in, by any chance, when you want them. When you don't, then they come in in shoals. I say, Clara, isn't it ages since we saw any of them from Pollokshields?'
'Yes; but you know we ought to have gone to ask for Aunt Margaret long ago.'
'I suppose so. We don't love our aunt, Gladys. It's the misfortune of many not to love their relations. Can you explain that mystery?'
'Perhaps they are not very lovable,' suggested Gladys.
'That's it exactly. Aunt Margaret is—Well, you'll see her some day, and then you'll admit that if she possesses lovable qualities she doesn't wear them every day. They are so rich, so odiously rich, that you never can forget it. She doesn't allow you to. And Julia is about as insufferable.'
'Really, Mina, you should not speak so strongly. You know papa and mamma wouldn't like it,' protested Clara mildly; but Mina only laughed.
'It is such a relief on a day like this to "go for" some one, as Len would say, and why not for one's relations? It's their chief use. And you know Julia Fordyce has more airs than a duchess. George is rather better, and he is so divinely handsome that you can't remember that he has a single fault.'
Was it the firelight, or did the colour heighten rapidly in Clara's cheek?
'Such nonsense you talk, Mina,' she said hastily.