“I am sure, ma’am, I didn’t mean no offense wotsomdever. I meant to be more ’spectful in sayin’ lady,” soothingly replied Luce.
“Well, then, never do you call me a ‘lady.’ ‘Lady’ is too unsartain a word. I’m that man’s wife, not ‘lady.’”
“That’s true, ma’am, an’ I’m sorry as I made a mistake,” said Luce, more humbly, because of a secret irony.
“I s’pose you’ve heard all about that rumpus in the church?”
“Somefin’ of it, ma’am,” discreetly observed Luce.
“Only something of it? Well, then, I will tell you all about it. It will pass away the time while waiting for breakfast.”
Luce, divided between her curiosity and her love of gossip on the one hand, and her conscientious sense of propriety on the other, made no direct reply.
Mrs. Anglesea began at the beginning and rehearsed all her wrongs, just as she had done to the family in the drawing room on the previous evening.
Luce went in and out between the kitchen and the dining room, and to and fro between the sideboard, the buffet and the table, with a:
“’Scuse, ma’am,” every time she went out of hearing.