Margaret did not know what to say. Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired by the shopping, and was inclined to hysteria.
“Howards End was nearly pulled down once. It would have killed me.”
“Howards End must be a very different house to ours. We are fond of ours, but there is nothing distinctive about it. As you saw, it is an ordinary London house. We shall easily find another.”
“So you think.”
“Again my lack of experience, I suppose!” said Margaret, easing away from the subject. “I can’t say anything when you take up that line, Mrs. Wilcox. I wish I could see myself as you see me—foreshortened into a backfisch. Quite the ingénue. Very charming—wonderfully well read for my age, but incapable—”
Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred. “Come down with me to Howards End now,” she said, more vehemently than ever. “I want you to see it. You have never seen it. I want to hear what you say about it, for you do put things so wonderfully.”
Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face of her companion. “Later on I should love it,” she continued, “but it’s hardly the weather for such an expedition, and we ought to start when we’re fresh. Isn’t the house shut up, too?”
She received no answer. Mrs. Wilcox appeared to be annoyed.
“Might I come some other day?”
Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass. “Back to Wickham Place, please!” was her order to the coachman. Margaret had been snubbed.