"My child, if there's a chance of a free meal, old Batch will be on the spot."
The unaccustomed housewife foretold her approaching shame, and proclaimed Louis to be the author of it. She began to quicken her steps.
"You certainly ought to have let me know sooner, dearest," she said seriously. "You really are terrible."
Hard knocks had not hurt her. But she was hurt now. And Louis' smile was very constrained. Her grave manner of saying "dearest" had disquieted him.
CHAPTER X
THE CHASM
I
It is true that Rachel held Councillor Thomas Batchgrew in hatred, that she had never pardoned him for the insult which he had put upon her in the Imperial Cinema de Luxe; and that, indeed, she could never pardon him for simply being Thomas Batchgrew. Nevertheless, there was that evening in her heart a little softening towards him. The fact was that the councillor had been flattering her. She would have denied warmly that she was susceptible to flattery; even if authoritatively informed that no human being whatever is unsusceptible to flattery, she would still have protested that she at any rate was, for, like numerous young and inexperienced women, she had persuaded herself that she was the one exception to various otherwise universal rules.