They went indoors again.
XVII
“LET me speak,” earnestly said Mrs. Mulholland. Unnecessarily.
No one could have stopped her.
Bertha Tregaskis did not attempt to, but listened with a broad, if rather fixed smile, and an impatient foot tapping the floor with sharp, irregular beats.
Regardless of the fact that it was Sunday evening, and that Mrs. Mulholland’s hands were locked, severely unoccupied, in her ample lap, Bertha was knitting vigorously.
She had had a day of interviews, in which it seemed to her that the Prior of Twickenham’s bland assumption of a knowledge of the world which he obviously did not possess was only less provoking than Mère Pauline’s austere conviction that le bon Dieu alone was conducting the affaire Frances and was not, and never had been, in receipt of extraneous aid from even the most chosen of His instruments.
Smilingly refusing to take these or similar assertions in any way for granted, Bertha had nevertheless made small headway against the unescapable fact that Frances, and that potent agent, Frances’ conscience, were arrayed against her.
Vexed in spirit, but still indomitable, she had fallen a victim, at the end of the day, to the assiduous pursuit of the zealous Mrs. Mulholland.
“La mère des dames pensionnaires,” was her emotional introduction of herself, spoken with an atrocious accent.