"It's all right," he reassured her urgently. "It's all right. I promise you it is. The great thing is to look yourself. And you'll never be the least like any one else." He meant that to be the first open declaration of his own particular discovery of her, but he was aware that his sentence could have more than one interpretation. Uncomfortably conscious then of his sister's regard of them, he looked up and said:
"Amy, Miss Cardinal's been telling me how confusing London is to her. You've got as good an idea of London as any one in the world. You should take her to one or two places and show her things."
Amy Warlock, every line of her stiff body firing at them both her hostility, answered:
"Oh, I don't think Miss Cardinal would care for me as a guide. I shouldn't be able to show her interesting things. We have scarcely, I should fancy, enough in common. Miss Cardinal's interests are, I imagine, very different from my own."
The tone, the words, fell into the sudden silence like a lighted match into water. Maggie, her head erect, her voice, in spite of herself, trembling a little, answered:
"Why, Miss Warlock, I shouldn't think of troubling you. It's very kind of your brother, but one must make one's discoveries for oneself, mustn't one? ... I am already beginning to find my way about."
After that the tea-party fell into complete disruption. Maggie, although she did not look, could feel Martin's anger like a flame beside her. She was aware that Aunt Anne and Mr. Warlock were, like some beings from another world, distant from the general confusion. Her one passionate desire was to get up and leave the place; to her intense relief she heard Aunt Anne's clear voice:
"I think, Mrs. Warlock, we must be turning homewards. Shall I send you those papers about the Perteway's Mission? ... Such splendid work. I think it would interest you."
It was as though a hole had suddenly opened in the floor of the neat little drawing-room and they were all hurrying to leave without, if possible, tumbling into it. There was a general shaking of hands.
Mrs. Warlock said kindly to Maggie: