"He is feeling being without the girls so much," said Mrs. Leighton.
"Yes," said Elma. "But, oh! mother, he is so pleased now that they are getting on. And isn't it magnificent of Mabel! That's what makes me think I must play up here. Miss Grace says it's very weak to give in on a matter of principle. She says that whether I'm wrong or right, the servants ought to obey me."
Mrs. Leighton debated for a long time.
"I quite see your difficulty," she said. "But above all things, we must never let Isobel think she hasn't her first home with us. You understand that, don't you?"
"Yes, mummy," said Elma. "If only you will back me upon the servant question once. Then I don't believe we shall have any more trouble with Isobel. I don't mind about whom she telephones to or whom she doesn't, but I do mind about the housekeeping. She thinks I'm such a kid, you know. And I mustn't for the credit of the family remain a kid all my days."
There was a far stronger motive to account for Elma's determination than any mere slight to herself. It was that Isobel had known about Robin and yet appropriated him as though he were a person whom one might make much of. The treatment of Mabel turned her from a child into a woman blazing for justice.
As they sat down to dinner that night, she noticed that her own little scheme for table decoration had been changed. At dessert she asked, with her knees trembling in the old manner, "Who changed my table centre?"
Nobody answered till Isobel, finding the silence holding conspicuously, said in a careless way, "Oh, I found Bertha putting down that green thing." Elma flushed dismally. (If she could only keep pale.)
She simulated a careless tone, however.
"Oh, Isobel," she said, "I wish you wouldn't. When I give directions to the servants, it's very difficult for me if some one else gives them others." It was lame, but it was there, the information that she was in control.