"Good-night," repeated Joanna, and went back to where her daughter, with a rather indignant demeanour, was waiting for her.
"Well?" asked Char, rather sullenly.
Lady Vivian, who almost invariably became flippant when her daughter was most in earnest, said provokingly: "Well, my dear, I've made arrangements for all sorts of unofficial rendezvous. You may see Miss Delmege at Plessing yet."
"Miss Delmege is a very good worker," said Char icily. "She's very much in earnest, always ready to stay overtime and finish up anything important."
"I'm sure Miss Jones is good at her job, too," said Trevellyan, supposing himself to be tactful.
"Fairly good. Not extraordinarily quick-witted, though, and much too sure of herself. I can't help thinking it's rather a pity to distinguish her from the others, mother; she's probably only too ready to take airs as it is, if she's of rather a different class."
"Fiddlesticks!" declared Lady Vivian briskly. "Put on your coat, Char, and come along. I can't keep the car waiting any longer. Rather a different class indeed! What has that to do with it? The girl's most attractive—an original type, too."
"Of course, if mother has taken one of her sudden violent fancies to this Jones child, I may as well make up my mind to hear nothing else, morning, noon, or night," Char muttered to John Trevellyan, who replied with matter-of-fact common sense that Char wasn't at Plessing for more than an hour or two on any single day, let alone morning, noon, and night.
"Char," said Lady Vivian from the car, "if you don't come now I shall leave you to spend the night at the Questerham Hostel, where you'll lose all your prestige with the staff, and have to eat and sleep just like an ordinary human being."
The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt got into her parent's motor in silence, and with a movement that might have been fairly described as a flounce.