“Beautiful!” she murmured.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit tart?” Maggie asked.
“Oh no!” protestingly.
“Don’t you?” asked Clara, with an air of delighted deferential astonishment.
“Oh no!” Mrs Hamps repeated. “It’s beautiful!” She did not smack her lips over it, because she would have considered it unladylike to smack her lips, but by less offensive gestures she sought to convey her unbounded pleasure in the jam. “How much sugar did you put in?” she inquired after a while. “Half and half?”
“Yes,” said Maggie.
“They do say gooseberries were a tiny bit sour this year, owing to the weather,” said Mrs Hamps reflectively.
Clara kicked Edwin under the table, as it were viciously, but her delightful innocent smile, directed vaguely upon Mrs Hamps, did not relax. Such duplicity passed Edwin’s comprehension; it seemed to him purposeless. Yet he could not quite deny that there might be a certain sting, a certain insinuation, in his auntie’s last remark.