"Ah!" cried Joseph, jumping up. "Here is my wife! Maud, this is dear little Valerie's mother!"
Maud tucked her umbrella under one arm, and extended a nerveless hand. "How-do-you-do?" she said, politely unenthusiastic. "I am just on my way to church, but Joseph will see to everything."
Joseph, Mathilda, and Paula had all assumed, on Mrs. Dean's arrival, that Maud would abandon her expedition to church, but Maud, although she listened to their representations, had no such intention. To oseph's plea that she should bear in mind her duties as hostess, she replied that she did not consider herself to be a hostess.
"But, my dear!" expostulated Joseph. "In your position you are the only married lady here, besides its being your home -"
"I have never thought of Lexham as home, Joseph," said Maud matter-of-factly.
Joseph had given it up. Mathilda put the affair on another basis by saying that Maud, as doyenne, could not leave the rest of the party to cope with Mrs. Dean.
Maud said that she did not know what a doyenne was, but she had always made a point of non-interference at Lexham.
"Darling Maud, this isn't a case of interference! Who's going to look after the woman? Show her to her room, and all that sort of thing?"
"I expect Joseph will manage very well," said Maud placidly. "It occurred to me last night that I might have left my book in the morning-room, but when I looked today it wasn't there. So tiresome!"
Mathilda too had given it up, and since, like Maud, she did not consider herself a hostess, she did not volunteer to deputise in the part.