"Hear, hear!" said Hilda, liking the terrific woman for an instant.
But mild Maggie was inflexible.
Clara, knowing that in Maggie very slight symptoms had enormous significance, at once changed the subject. Albert went to the back window, whence by twisting his neck he could descry a corner of the garden.
Said Clara, smiling:
"I hear you're going to have some musical evenings, Hilda ... on Sunday nights."
Malice and ridicule were in Clara's tone. On the phrase "musical evenings" she put a strange disdainful emphasis, as though a musical evening denoted something not only unrighteous but snobbish, new-fangled, and absurd. Yet envy also was in her tone.
Hilda was startled.
"Ah! Who told you that?"
"Never mind! I heard," said Clara darkly.
Hilda wondered where the Benbows, from whom seemingly naught could be concealed, had in fact got this tit-bit of news. By tacit consent she and Edwin had as yet said nothing to anybody except the Orgreaves, who alone, with Tertius Ingpen and one or two more intimates, were invited, or were to be invited, to the first evening. Relations between the Orgreaves and the Benbows scarcely existed.