“I don’t mean to blame him!” she flashed, colouring a little. “Didn’t I tell you he was looking for himself? I’m doing the same, if it comes to that. I shall make mistakes, too. If I’m hard on him, I shall have to be hard on myself.”
“You’ll both learn the quicker.”
“Yes, but we’ve been spoilt—haven’t we, Grumphy boy? We shouldn’t take kindly to the whip.”
“Sometimes the whip is the only teacher.”
He checked himself then, feeling that the intimacy of the gap had misled him. He was in no mood to be friendly, and departed presently with a curt good-bye. Round the turn, he dropped his hand with a faint snap of the fingers, and the spaniel, close at his knee, thrust a gentle nose into his palm, looking up at him with worshipping eyes.
“Starved, are you, old lady?” he asked, with a shrug. “Neglected? Half-cowed? How would you fancy yourself at the Royal, looking like that fat Astrakhan or Saskatchewan or whatever they call it? We’ll give him a bucketing some day over Ewrigg after rabbits. Perhaps he’ll have settled what he is, by that time, unless the keepers have settled him.”
He mentioned the meeting to Helwise, and asked whether she had called yet. It seemed she had not.
“Of course one always does call at Watters, but it isn’t the thing to rush. Five or six months is quite soon enough for really old inhabitants. But I’ve been meaning to go. I was only waiting until the balance-sheet of the Kindness to Kitchenmaids came in. They’ll be sure to give to that, because, if you don’t, it looks as though you couldn’t afford a kitchenmaid, like people who profess they adore walking when you stop to offer them a lift. It was so difficult to find out what they were—the Watters crowd, I mean. One was afraid they might offer one tea in the kitchen—not that one ever does get tea at a first call, but they couldn’t be expected to know that. Still, I don’t mind going, if you think I ought. There’s the Onion-Protesters, too, and the Paper Roses.”
“They seem very decent people,” Lanty answered shortly. “Not by any means savages, as you suggest. I should be glad if you could find time to call, as I have already met the daughter twice, but I shall be extremely annoyed if you ask them for a penny at a first visit.”
“But it’s my duty to get all I can for my societies,” his aunt urged. “I do so despise people who take up causes, and then forget all about them! Let me see—is it one year’s subscription or two that I owe to the Church Army? I suppose you could tell me if I brought you my bank-book? And are you thinking of going to the Roselands garden-party, to-day?”