“I must ask Mr. Grimshaw to dinner. I wonder whether he belongs to the Grimthorpe Grimshaws.”
“Does it matter?”
Lady Selina smiled tolerantly. This was one of the less happy consequences of sending a girl to school. She said superbly:
“A Chandos ought to be able to answer that question.”
Cicely remained silent. Her great friend at school had been Arabella Tiddle, the daughter of the millionaire pill-manufacturer. Lady Tiddle—so Lady Selina had been credibly informed—once worked in a shoe factory. Sometimes Lady Selina wondered what it felt like to be a Tiddle. She shied at the name, as Cicely was well aware. Nevertheless, Arabella had been invited to the Manor, where she comported herself triumphantly. A small string of beautiful pearls was graciously approved by Arabella’s hostess; whereupon the girl said ingenuously: “So very appropriate, aren’t they?” Lady Selina, not sure of this, asked pleasantly: “Why, my dear?” Arabella replied with a laugh: “They are just like Daddy’s pills. Of course you know that he advertises them as ‘Tiddle’s Pearls.’ ” Lady Selina didn’t know this, but she smiled amiably, and Arabella continued: “Mummy has ropes of them. Tiddle’s Priceless Pearls! Funny, isn’t it?” Lady Selina smiled again; a different adjective occurred to her.
Cicely’s silence slightly exasperated her. Confidence ought to beget confidence. Now that she was beginning to treat her daughter as “grown up,” surely she might expect more response. Had Cicely learnt to hold her tongue at school? The right selection of a school had worried Lady Selina not a little. Dr. Pawley shared her anxieties. At thirteen Cicely became rather anæmic, almost scraggy! Bracing air was prescribed; reinvigorating games; the stimulus of competition in work and play. After studying innumerable prospectuses, Lady Selina chose a big school on the South Coast, a sort of Eton in petticoats. And there the child had grown into a strong young woman. But, undoubtedly, she had lost something vaguely described by Lady Selina as “bloom.” Attrition with girls without grandfathers had rubbed it off. Miss Tiddle had no “bloom” except upon her cheeks. The political tendencies of the school were lamentably democratic.
She continued blandly, ignoring Cicely’s silence, taking for granted that it meant nothing:
“I daresay Mr. Grimshaw plays tennis.”
“Fancy your not knowing——!”
“What?”