Marjorie closed the door, feeling very small and very frightened. This was the wife of the great Sir Eric Denby, the most perdurable public figure of our time. The soundest of sound statesmen, he stood, to Raymond Dilling, just a shade lower than God, Himself.
And the Dillings were profoundly religious people.
“Won’t you take off your things?” she asked, timidly, and upon receiving a refusal, tinctured with a suggestion of reproach, excused herself and went into the kitchen to make tea.
When she returned, Lady Denby and Althea were staring unsympathetically at one another across the table.
“Why, darling,” Marjorie exclaimed, setting down the teapot, and forgetting her social obligations in the pride of motherhood, “I didn’t hear you come in. Dear, dear, what a very untidy little girl, with her tam all crooked and her ribbon untied! This is Althea, Lady Denby. You’ve no idea how helpful she can be—Go and shake hands, precious!”
Althea was obedient on this occasion. She marched round the table and offered a grimy, wet mitten—the left one—from which the visitor shrank with a movement of alarm.
“How do you do?” said Lady Denby, discovering, after an embarrassing search, a spot upon the shoulder, dry enough, and clean enough, to be touched by her white-gloved hand.
“Having a good time, darling?” asked Marjorie, glowing with joy in the child’s loveliness. “Not playing too rough a game?”
“Cream, but no sugar,” said Lady Denby, significantly.
For a few awkward moments, Marjorie gave herself up entirely to the duties of hostess, then turned again to her daughter.