The classical nature of this riposte left her so content that she was able to ask with affectionate interest:
“And do tell me how it all works? Of course they appeal to me, if only as the children of an intensely musical mother. I heard her play once, I remember—oh, ages ago—when I was in London. Rather a striking-looking woman, and the eldest girl reminded me of her at once. It somehow gave me a little pang—it seemed to bring back that concert, years ago when Geoffrey and I were together.”
Bertha was too familiar with the singular power that the most unlikely incidents possessed of recalling Nina’s happier hours to accord more than a passing acknowledgment towards this tender tribute to the past.
“My poor dear,” she murmured rapidly. “Rosamund is like her mother, but she reminds me of poor Dick Grantham too. My cousin, you know; we were almost brought up together.”
Her sigh was perhaps intended to remind Nina that she held no monopoly of lost relatives. “They seem dear children, and very easy to understand, though really I always think that to understand children is a sort of God-given knack, which one is simply lucky enough to possess.”
“One” does not sound particularly egotistical, and conveys “I” quite successfully to a practised listener.
“They’re very backward about lessons, poor little things; and just imagine! neither of them has ever held a needle or been taught to keep accounts! Why, at ten years old I remember making my own pinafores and darning the boys’ socks!”
“Ah well, you’ll teach them all that kind of thing too beautifully—so useful and necessary,” declared Nina negligently, “though I’m afraid I’ve rather a sneaking sympathy for unpractical, helpless creatures like myself. Poor Geoffrey used to tell me that I was too ornamental to be really useful. One can say it at this distance of time, without being thought vain by the unimaginative.”
Having thus skilfully precluded the possibility of Bertha’s attributing her innocent anecdote to vanity, Nina added tenderly:
“You’re so wonderful about clever, practical things, I know. You and I, I always think, Bertie dear, are like Martha and Mary—you know—the two types of active and contemplative, as it were.”