"What book?"
"Oh! you know—you lent it me. Something like drinking—you know. By that man Westcott—such a silly name."
"The Vines!—Didn't you like it?"
"Like it! My dear Rachel, why, they go on for pages about each other's feelings and nothing happens and I'm sure it's most unwholesome. They're all so unhappy and always hating one another. I like books to be cheerful and about people one knows—don't you?"
"Well, Nita dear, it's a good thing we don't all like the same things, isn't it? Sugar?"
"Yes, dear, you know—lots—Darling, have you got a headache? You do look rotten—you do really."
Rachel knew that she must keep an especial guard to-day: she was irritable, out of sorts. She would have liked immensely to send Nita to have her tea in the nursery, were there one.
"No, I'm all right. But I wanted to get out and this storm stopped me."
"You do look dicky! Oh! what do you think! Roddy's taking us over to Hawes to-morrow to lunch if the weather's anything like decent. He's just fixed it up—sent a wire——"
"To-morrow? But I can't.... He knows. I've got Miss Crale coming here——"