The girl shook her head.
“I hardly know, Lady Maxell——”
“For heaven’s sake don’t call me ‘Lady Maxell,’ ” said the other irritably. “I’ve told you to call me Sadie if you want to.” There was a silence. “Evidently you don’t want,” snapped the woman. “You’re what I call a fine, sociable family. You seem to get your manners from your new friend.”
The girl went red.
“My new friend?” she asked, and Lady Maxell turned her back to her with some resolution and resumed for a moment the reading of her magazine.
“I don’t mind if you find any pleasure in talking to that kind of insect,” she said, putting the periodical down again. “Why, the world’s full of those do-nothing boys. I suppose he knows there’s money coming to you.”
The girl smiled.
“Very little, Lady Maxell,” she said.
“A little’s a lot to a man like that,” said the other. “You mustn’t think I am prejudiced because I was—er—annoyed the other day. That is temperament.”
Again the girl smiled, but it was a different kind of smile, and Lady Maxell observed it.