Miss Delmege smiled cryptically.
"Well," she said gently, "underwear in the sitting-room, you know!"
"Oh dear!" cried Grace in tones of dismay. "Is that really why she's gone upstairs?"
"No loss, either," Miss Marsh declared stoutly.
"But it's only my petticoat bodice."
"I suppose she didn't know what might be coming next."
Grace, guiltily conscious of that which might quite well have been coming next but for this timely reminder, hastily completed her work and put it away again.
She leant back in the wicker chair, unconsciously adjusting her weight with due regard to its habit of creaking, and gazed into the red embers of the dying fire.
Her mind was quite abstracted, and she was unaware of the spasmodic conversation carried on all round her.
Her thoughts were at Plessing.