Matilda snorted.
"Well—and then—?"
"Then I go down and have my breakfast in the secretary's room—my sitting-room, in fact. It is a lovely breakfast, with beautiful china and silver and table-linen, and when I have finished that I take my block and pencil and go up to Lady Garribardine's bedroom to take down my instructions for the day in shorthand."
"Oh, Kitten, do tell me, what's her room like?" At last something interesting might be coming!
"It is all pink silk and lace and a gilt bed, and numbers of photographs, and a big sofa and comfortable chairs—and when she has rheumatism she stays there and has people up to tea."
"What! Folks to tea in her bedroom? Ladies, of course?"
"Oh! dear no! Men, too! She has heaps of men friends; they are devoted to her."
"Gentlemen in her bedroom! I do call that fast!" Matilda was frankly shocked.
"Why?" asked Katherine.