“That makes no difference to me.”
“Oh, darling! I believe you’d like me to borrow one of Jollypot’s as a pattern—they’re flannel and up to her ears, and the sleeves reach down to her nails.”
“Oh, Miss Concha!” Parker would titter, both shocked and amused; and the Doña, with a snort, would exclaim, “That poor Jollypot! To think of her sleeping in flannel! But there are many degrees between the nightgowns of Jollypot and those of a demi-mondaine, and you remember what Father Vaughan ...” and then she would suddenly realise that the views on lingerie of the Roman hierarchy no longer carried any weight with Concha, and in a chilly voice she would say, “Well, you and Parker had better settle it in your own way; it has nothing to do with me ... now,” and would sweep out of the room with a heavy heart.
One evening Dick, who had been in London for the day, said at dinner, “By the way I met Munroe in the city. He caught flu in that beastly cold seminary, and it turned into pneumonia. He looked very bad, poor chap. He’s on sick leave at present, and I was wondering ...” and he looked timidly at the Doña: (Since his escapade he had become a very poor-spirited creature.) “I was wondering, Anna ... if you don’t mind, of course, if we might ask him down for a few days.”
“Poor young man! Certainly,” said the Doña, with unusual warmth; for, as a rule, she deplored her husband’s unbridled hospitality.
“I wonder ... a very odd thing ... he was getting on extraordinarily well in business and everything.... He was asking about you, Concha, and your engagement. Yon saw a good deal of him, didn’t you? Have you been breaking his heart and turning him monk?”
Concha laughed; gratified, evidently, by the suggestion. But the Doña said coldly, “Concha was probably merely one of the many tests to which he was putting his vocation—and, evidently, not a very sweet one.... What are you all laughing at? Oh, I see! I’ve used the wrong word—Acid test, if you like it better.”
But, though she laughed, Concha’s sensitive vanity flooded her cheeks.
That same night Dick wrote off to David Munroe telling him to come down at once and spend his convalescence at Plasencia.