"It would be rather absurd for me to call it that when it's wrong," said Nora, flushing with annoyance.
Gertie's thin lips tightened.
"Of course I don't pretend to have had very much schooling, but it seems to me I've read something somewhere about doing as the Romans do when you're livin' with them. At any rate, I'm sure of one thing: it's considered the polite thing to do in any country."
The feeling that she had been put in the wrong, even if not very tactfully, did not tend to lessen Nora's annoyance. She looked appealingly at her brother, but he, leaning back in his chair and seeing that his wife's eyes were bent on her plate, shook his head at her, smiling slightly.
"If everyone has finished," said Gertie after an awkward pause, "if you'll all move your chairs away I'll clear away the things."
"May I help you?" said Nora with an effort at conciliation.
"No, thanks."
"No, no. You're company to-night," said her brother with a man's relief at finding an unpleasant situation at an end. "But I daresay to-morrow Gertie'll find plenty for you to do. We'll all be out till dinner time. You girls will have a lot to talk over while you're getting acquainted."
Hornby groaned dismally.
"It doesn't make any difference what the weather is in this blessed country," he said dismally to Nora, "you have to go out whether there's really anything to do or not."