“So sorry to hear about Major Ames, dear cousin Amy,” she said. “Wilfred told me he had been to see him.”
Mrs. Ames made a kissing-pad, so to speak, of her small toad’s face, and Millie dabbed her cheek on it.
“Dear Millie, how nice of you to call! Parker, tell the Major that tea is ready and that Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Altham are here.”
But by the time Major Ames arrived Mrs. Altham was there no longer. She was thoroughly disgusted with the transformation into chaff of all the beautiful grain that they had taken the trouble to thresh out the night before. She summed it up succinctly to her husband when he came back from his golf.
“I don’t believe the Suffragettes are going to do anything at all, Henry,” she said, “and I shouldn’t wonder if these chrysanthemums had nothing to do with anybody. The only thing is that her hair is dyed, because it was all speckled with grey again as thickly as yours, and I declare I left The Safety of the Race behind me, instead of bringing it back again, as I meant to do.”
Henry, who had won his match at golf, was naturally optimistic.
“Then you didn’t actually see Major Ames?” he asked.
“No, but there was no longer any doubt about it all,” she said. “I do not think I am unduly credulous, but it was clear there was nothing the matter with him except a touch of lumbago. And all this Suffragette business means nothing at all, in spite of the yards of riband. You may take my word for it.”
“Then there will be no point in going to Sir James’ meeting,” said Henry, “though the President of the Board of Trade is going to speak.”
“Not unless you want to hear the biggest windbag in the country buttering up the greatest prig in the county. I should be sorry to waste my time over it; and he is dining with the Ames’, and so I suppose all there will be to look at will be the row of them on the platform, all swollen with one of Mrs. Ames’ biggest dinners. We might have gone to bed at our usual time last night, for all the use that there has been in our talk. And it was you saw the chrysanthemums, from which you expected so much and thought it worth while to tell me about them.”