Millie observed that her mother found them so.
“Yes, you’ve enjoyed yourself, you needn’t tell me, and yet—”
“Yet what?”
It was Mrs Ravenhill who put the question. “There’s something. You’re not quite the same.”
“To be always the same one must be carved in stone,” remarked Millie. “I’m sunburnt, which proves I am not a statue. But you? It is our turn to ask questions. How came you in London?”
Lady Fanny sighed and folded her hands.
“Because the world is stuffed with sawdust. Imagine Milborough having the baseness to throw me over when he had promised me a cruise in his yacht! I was so cross that I felt I must do something disagreeable in order to keep up my position of martyr, so I proposed to come and spend a week with my old governess, Miss Burton. If I talk like a lesson-book, forgive me. I ask questions because I am sick of answering them.”
“You will come here at once,” said Mrs Ravenhill, with decision.
“May I? Delightful. I had meant to go into Shropshire to-morrow, but I will send Ward by herself, and joyfully stay. By the way, where do you think that Milborough is gone? To Norway. I intended to telegraph to Bergen and tell you so. And of course that added to my injury, for I had counted upon meeting you round some corner in the most unexpected manner.”
Her spirits rose, she flashed fun upon them, and told stories to her own discredit with mirthful mimicry. Then she fluttered round the room, noticing what was new, and discovering all manner of similes for the stool which at last had found a use.