“We can’t impose ourselves upon Mr. Goodrich, my dear, and Danecourt, under the circumstances, would be too depressing. Heaven alone knows when we shall get into our own house again. A fairly comfortable flat in London seems the one thing possible.”
“Oh! London!”
“I said London—not Timbuctoo. Do you object to London?”
“N-no.”
Lady Selina eyed her daughter sharply. As a matter of fact, she had thought of London entirely on Cicely’s account. Her own friends were living quietly in the country, more or less engrossed by patriotic work. London, she felt, would distract the child. And she hated flats.
“Would you prefer Bournemouth?”
A derisive inflection underlay the question. Lady Selina detested popular watering-places and big hotels, where food you didn’t want was placed before you at stated hours, and even earls’ daughters were known by chambermaids as numbers!
“Bournemouth! No.”
“Perhaps you will tell me what you would like before I try to go to sleep.”
Hunted into a corner, Cicely said hastily: