Mildred, Miss Carruthers, who agreed with Lady Kidderminster in most things, agreed in this.
After a rather dispiriting breakfast in which Mame had to be content with a boiled egg, some poor coffee, some thin toast and an elegant spoonful of jam, she took the air of the domain with Miss Carruthers. Like everything else about the place, the air of the domain was good in quality, yet it did not seem to be exhilarating. Mame felt inclined to fix some of the responsibility upon Miss Carruthers. She was as good as gold, but she wanted pep.
In the course of this ordeal in the garden, Mame’s great disappointment once more recurred. She could not forget the Towers; their absence filled her with a sense of grievance.
“Why don’t Lady K. live at the big house?” She put the question frankly. “Some place that. I guess I’d want to live there if I owned it.”
Miss Carruthers hesitated a moment and then said in that plaintive voice which already was beginning to get on Mame’s nerves. “Cousin Lucy can’t afford to do that. She’s been so hit by the War. The Towers eats money. One has to be rich to keep up a place of that kind.”
“She isn’t rich, then?”
“Dear, no.”
“What’ll she do with that old place?” There was keen disappointment in Mame’s tone.
“Cousin Lucy, I believe, has not decided yet. At present the Towers is let to some rich Americans.”
“Any I know?” asked Mame. From her manner it might have been a hobby of hers to specialise in rich Americans. It would do this dame no harm to think so anyway.