"Only after you'd gone too far for us to call to you," Pauline answered, nervously assuring herself that Margaret had not tried to "catch her out," as Janet would have said.
"We had taken the short cut through the Abbey," Monica explained.
Pauline felt that what Monica had meant to say was: "We did not spy upon you deliberately." And that she should have had this instinct of putting her sisters in the wrong prepared her for something unpleasant, that and the fuss her mother was making over the tea-tray. Pauline was more than ever grateful to the impulse which had not allowed Guy to change his mind and come back with her. As soon as tea was over Margaret and Monica went away to practise a duet; and in the manner of their going from the room Pauline felt the louring of the atmosphere.
Her mother began at once:
"Pauline, I'm surprised at your going into the Abbey with Guy."
"Well, it was really an accident. I mean it was because we wanted not to meet any of the Brydones, who were rushing at us from every side."
Pauline tried to laugh, but her mother looked down at the milk-jug and flushed nearly to crimson in the embarrassment of something she was forcing herself to say.
"It's not merely going into the Abbey ... no ... not merely that ... no, not merely going into the Abbey ... but to let Guy make love to you like that is so vulgar. Pauline, it's the sort of way that servants behave when they're in love."
She sprang from the window-seat.