“Doesn’t your wife play Bridge?” Miss Forster inquired rather maliciously.
“No.”
“You’re tired with your journey perhaps,” piped Mrs. Clarence, looking inquisitively at the stranger.
Mrs. Margoliouth stared back at her with lack-lustre and rather contemptuous-looking black eyes.
“What journey?” she said in a thick voice. “I’ve only come up from Clapham, where we go back on Monday. Our house is at Clapham. The children are there.”
“The children?” repeated Mrs. Clarence foolishly.
“We have five children,” said Mrs. Margoliouth impassively, but she cast a fierce glance at her husband as she spoke.
Miss Forster suddenly thrust herself forward, and demonstratively put her arm round Lydia’s waist.
“I suppose you’re going upstairs to your scribbling, as usual, you naughty girl?” she inquired affectionately.
“I ought to,” Lydia said, smiling faintly. “It isn’t cold in my room now that I’ve got a little oil-stove. I got the idea from a girl I went to supper with the other night, who lives in rooms.”