Maud settled the last Jacquemenot in its place, and put her arm round her sister's waist. "Let's go into the drawing-room," she said. "I'd hate going upstairs. Never, never again shall I have another baby."
"You look beautiful, Maud," the girl assured her earnestly. "It suits you somehow."
"Nonsense! But what's the matter with you, dear? You look tired out."
"Yes, I've been making a fool of myself. Three dances in the last five days."
"When's John coming home?"
They sat down on the uncomfortable sofa under the gilt mirror, and Griselda leant back against a non-existent cushion, and sat up with a little scowl.
"Oh, he will be back in a day or two, thank goodness. Oh, Maud, I have missed him so; you have no idea," she insisted, "how much I have missed him!"
Before her marriage Maud Twiss, who, after all, was nine years older than Grisel, had been rather jealous of her little sister's greater charm and beauty. But since she had been married her feelings had changed and the sisters had grown towards each other a little. Hermione had always been more selfish than Maud, and, besides, she and Grisel had much the same hair and profiles, so the youngest girl had always been inclined to like the eldest one best. They sat there on the sofa discussing things in general, but avoiding two subjects—the divorce and Oliver Wick. Fortunately the Gaskell-Walkers arrived before the Wicks, and shortly after the arrival of Jenny and Oliver, Bruce Collier turned up with a young Frenchman as fifth man.
Everyone had some kind of present for Paul, who accepted them with extreme seriousness and regarded himself—most unusual in a young Englishman—as the legitimate centre of attraction of the evening. Paul had a disconcerting way, for all his disagreeable mannerisms and selfishness, of doing certain things that reminded his mother almost unbearably of his babyhood and little boyhood. And this evening, as he stood, as pleased as possible, at the little table where all his presents were spread out, she wondered if the others were as struck as she was by the incongruity of his manner. Red-headed little Jenny Wick, who stood near her, read her thoughts.
"Isn't he funny," the girl said in an undertone, shaking her fat silk curls and wrinkling up her snow-white but befreckled little nose. "He's just like a baby. I wish I had brought him a rattle."