“Probably she had none,” was the startling reply.
“What!” cried Miss Payne, brandishing the empty sugar tongs. “I know that chaperons are extinct at home—the bicycle killed them—but I’d no idea that India was so emancipated.”
“I’m afraid we are,” replied Mrs. Potter. “I heard some violent kissing last evening behind the screen where my partner and I were sitting out, and I happened to see the couple later—a girl and a married man!”
“Oh, really!” protested Miss Payne with mock horror, “I shall be obliged to retire. I am much too young for this kind of conversation!”
Then she looked across at me and burst out laughing.
“What do you say?”
This question drew upon me the immediate notice of Mrs. Potter. Hitherto I had been sitting a little in the background, now she turned round and favoured me with special attention.
“And you arrived yesterday, did you not?”
“Yes,” I acknowledged with meek humility.
She stared at me so hard that I felt quite out of countenance, and could not find anything else to say.