“Well, you’re going to prove the contrary this afternoon.” He looked at his watch, stood up and laid a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “Let people think what they choose; and send young Delia to me if she gives you any trouble. Your boy won’t, you know, nor John Junius either; it must have been a woman who invented that third-and-fourth generation idea....”
An elderly maid-servant looked in, and Delia rose; but on the threshold she halted.
“I have an idea it’s Charlotte I may have to send to you.”
“Charlotte?”
“She’ll hate what I’m going to do, you know.”
Dr. Lanskell lifted his silver eyebrows. “Yes: poor Charlotte! I suppose she’s jealous? That’s where the truth of the third-and-fourth generation business comes in, after all. Somebody always has to foot the bill.”
“Ah—if only Tina doesn’t!”
“Well—that’s just what Charlotte will come to recognize in time. So your course is clear.”
He guided her out through the dining-room, where some poor people and one or two old patients were already waiting.
Delia’s course, in truth, seemed clear enough till, that afternoon, she summoned Charlotte alone to her bedroom. Tina was lying down with a headache: it was in those days the accepted state of young ladies in sentimental dilemmas, and greatly simplified the communion of their elders.