“Sessional people, I suppose?” interrupted Miss de Latour, with just the faintest movement of her nose as though she was speaking of a drain-digger, or some other useful class of citizen who, by reason of necessity, moved in the effluvia occasioned by his work.
Captain the Honourable Teddy Dodson approached at this moment to ask if the ladies were satisfactorily served.
“Do let me get you some more tea,” he begged. “I’m afraid no one’s looking after you—this awful mob, you know.” He pushed a collection of discarded cups aside and seated himself on the edge of a chair, leaning forward with an air of flattering confidence. “Cross your hearts and hope you may die,” he whispered, “and I’ll tell you what we call these beastly tea fights.”
The trio playfully followed his instructions and encouraged him to reveal the limit of his naughtiness.
“We call them ‘slum parties’,” confided the young Aide, and while the ladies shrieked their appreciation of his wicked wit, he clumped away on his expensive skates, balancing three cups quite cleverly as he elbowed a passage to the table.
“How do you suppose these people get invitations?” Miss de Latour demanded, indignantly. “Look at that woman over there—no, no, the one in the purple hat. Isn’t that the awful Pratt creature who’s pushing herself into everything?”
“My husband,” said Mrs. Chesley, “calls her the Virginia Creeper. However, she’ll get on. They say she’s been left a disgusting lot of money, and that her husband’s going to run for Parliament.”
“That’s no reason why she should be here,” said the other. “Are there no impregnable bulwarks left to protect Society?”
“Why, Pamela,” cried Mrs. Chesley, “how clever of you to remember that! I read it, too, in Lady Dunstan’s Memoirs, but I’ve no memory—I can’t quote things . . .”
“. . . as though they were your own!” finished Lady Elton, and laughed at the neatness of her thrust.