They had all been in London nearly a month, and the excellent old lady was living in a permanent equipment of heavy armour, with which to repel, assault, and batter her daughter-in-law. Eva, on the contrary, despised the old methods of warfare, and met these attacks, or led them, with no further implements than her own unruffled scorn, and a somewhat choice selection of small daggers and arrows, in the shape of a studied delicacy of sarcasm and polite impertinences. She resembled, in fact, an active and accomplished pea-shooter, who successfully pelted the joints of a mature and slowly-moving Goliath. The dowager glanced up as she entered. One of her laborious mottoes was "Punctuality is the root of virtue," and Eva, in consequence, held the view that punctuality is the last infirmity of possibly noble minds. She was quite willing to believe that her mother-in-law had an incomparably noble mind; she did not underrate her antagonist's strong points; in fact, her whole system was to emphasize them.
"Ah, you've come at last," said old Lady Hayes. "And pray, when are we to have tea?"
"I am late," said Eva. "I always am late, you know. Why didn't you have tea without me? Is Hayes in?"
"The servants have quite enough to do with the dance to-night without bringing up tea twice."
"Ah, that is so thoughtful and charming of you," said Eva, drawing off her long gloves. "The merciful man considers his beast. That is so good of you."
"And he considers his servants as well," said the dowager.
"Oh! I think servants are meant to be classed as a sort of beast. The good ones are machines, with volition; and if they are bad servants, of course they are beasts."
The dowager turned over the leaves of the current number of the Lancet with elaborate unconsciousness.
Eva finished taking off her gloves, and whistled a few bars of a popular tune.