Dodo let her arms drop beside her with a little hopeless gesture.
"I know one's got no business to be bored, and it's one's own fault as a rule if one is," she went on. "For instance, that woman in the moated Grange ought to have swept away the blue fly that buzzed in the pane, and set a mouse-trap for the mouse that shrieked, and got the carpenter to repair the mouldering wainscot, and written to the Psychical Research, how she had heard her own sad name in corners cried, and it couldn't have been the cat, or she would have caught the shrieking mouse. Oh, there were a hundred things she might have done, before she sat down and said, 'He cometh not,' But I have had a period of enforced idleness. If I had set a trap for the mouse, the doctor would have told me not to exert myself so much.' I used to play Halma with Chesterford, only I always beat him; and then nobody ever cried my name in sad corners, that I remember; it would have been quite interesting."
Jack laughed.
"What a miserable story, Dodo," he said. "I always said—you had none of the domestic virtues, and I am right, it seems."
"Oh, it isn't that," said Dodo, "but I happen to have a brain as well, and if I don't use it, it decays, and when it decays, it breeds maggots. I've got a big maggot in my head now, and that is, that the ineffable joys of maternity are much exaggerated. Don't look shocked, Geraldine. I know it's a maggot, and simply means that I haven't personally experienced them, but the maggot says, 'You are a woman, and if you don't experience them, either they don't exist, or you are abnormal.' Well, the maggot lies, I know it, I believe they do exist, and I am sure I am not abnormal. Ah, this is unprofitable, isn't it. You two have come to drive the maggot out."
Mrs. Vivian felt a sudden impulse of anger, which melted into pity.
"Poor Dodo," she said, "leave the maggot alone, and he will die of inanition. At present give me some more tea. This really is very good tea, and you drink it the proper way, without milk or sugar, and with a little slice of lemon."
"Tea is such a middle-aged thing any other way," said Dodo, pouring out another cup. "I feel like an old woman in a workhouse if I put milk and sugar in it. Besides, you should only drink tea at tea. It produces the same effect as tobacco, a slight soothing of the nerves. One doesn't want to be soothed at breakfast, otherwise the tedious things we all have to do in the morning are impossible. Chesterford has a passion for the morning. He quoted something the other day about the divine morning. It isn't divine, it is necessary; at least you can't get to the evening without a morning, in this imperfect world. Now if it had only been 'the evening and the evening were the first day,' what a difference it would have made."
Mrs. Vivian laughed.
"You always bring up the heavy artillery to defend a small position, Dodo," she said. "Keep your great guns for great occasions."