Aunt Clo's little Dickenson appeared to be far from delighted at the proposition.
"How d'you mean, the use of words?" she asked curtly.
"Your vocabulary," Aunt Clo explained in a kind voice, "is that of a child, or a savage. It is, I believe, a statistical fact that certain savage tribes use a language of only two hundred words. It suffices for their need of self-expression. The vocabulary of the average English man or woman comprises little over fifteen hundred words, in daily use. People like myself, on the other hand, sooner or later have recourse to the most recondite expressions available, in the instinctive desire to avoid the banale. Words from other languages creep in—classical quotations—conversation becomes an art——"
Miss Stellenthorpe waved her cigarette gracefully round her head.
"How devastating!" said Doris Dickenson in the pause that followed.
Her voice was charged with the rather laboured sneer that in the English middle-classes is described as "sarcasm."
"Unhappy one!" said Aunt Clo, and groaned aloud. "What is this 'devastating' that you employ à tort et à travers? A senseless and meaningless cliché!"
She fixed a large and gleaming eye, that held undisguised horror in it, upon Doris.
Lily was conscious of a fearful joy in listening, as the many scathing criticisms that had thronged into her own mind were thus eloquently and unrestrainedly put into words by her aunt.
The sulky face of Miss Dickenson was darkly flushed.