"Of tulle."
"—of tulle, which very cleverly matched the colour of her ki—tunic. Over her shoulders she wore a filmy scarf, of the same stu—material. Her waistband, which she wore rather high up, contained a small bunch of carnations. Finally her appearance caused considerable gratification to one of her oldest friends, who did not know that she was in town."
"I only got back this afternoon," said Peggy, who by this time had risen to her feet and was inspecting Philip's lares et penates. "By the way, your front door was ajar, Philip. Your last visitor must have left it open. Very careless! You might have been robbed."
"I expect it was Friend Grice."
Peggy babbled on. She was speaking vivaciously, and rather more rapidly than was her wont; another woman would have said that she was talking to exclude other topics.
"It is more than a year since I was in these rooms, Philip. They are as snug as ever, but horribly untidy. Why do you always keep books on the floor? And your mantelpiece—tragic!" She ran her finger along the edge, and held it up reproachfully. "Look! Filthy!" The tip of her glove was black. "I shall have to take my gloves off, I see, to keep them clean."
"I apologise. You have dropped in just before our annual dust-up. Most unfortunate!"
"Are these your household gods?" continued Peggy, coming to a halt before the mantelpiece.
"Yes."
"Yours or Timothy's?"