She had her back to the windows, and faced Sir Thomas at the other end of the square table.
“Good-morning, Rose. How is Cecil?”
“He’s much better, thank you. He can get up to-day.”
Rose moved uneasily between her own place at the table and the sideboard. The procedure at breakfast always embarrassed her.
Was it bad manners to help oneself? They all did so, but then, they were at home, and Rose, most emphatically, was not. It seemed quite wrong to let an old gentleman like Sir Thomas get up and wait upon one....
She placed herself awkwardly in his way, apologised nervously and with unnecessary laughter, and finally stumbled into her chair, full of inchoate resentment and confusion.
Sir Thomas said to his wife, as Rose had heard him say every morning since her own arrival:
“What are the plans for to-day, my dear?”
Lady Aviolet immediately took up a little note-book with silver corners and a silver pencil attached, and began to flutter the leaves.
“The Marchmonts are coming to tea. Very pleasant neighbours of ours, Rose; you will like to meet them. General Marchmont, he is, and there are two unmarried daughters. Poor Mrs. Marchmont is dead, I’m sorry to say. She was a Mallinson.”