It was a canon with her that people should be plump. She was alive to the state of Giles’s feelings, but she resented its affecting the outlines of his person. From much experience she felt secure of her niece’s invulnerability, she had seen so many darts fall blunted from her armour, one adorer more or less, even a married one, did not matter. She always reflected, too, that Giles was a connection of her own by marriage. Mrs. Travis possessed that order of mind which looks upon things belonging to themselves as beyond suspicion and reproach. He was a married man, but a connection of her own, immaculate! Nevertheless she resented the dwindling of his bulk; perhaps she considered it indecent; perhaps, in some mysterious way, she regarded it as the removal of her own property. In any case a moody leanness was unpardonable; to her, Nielsen, attentive yet well-covered, was more satisfactory.
“I shall recommend him to take cod-liver oil; I don’t think it’s right for any man to be so thin,” she said.
Jocelyn made an impatient movement, and the frilled sleeves of her nightdress rustled faintly against the muslin curtain. Mrs. Travis, disappearing again into her room, continued to talk.
“To-day was quite wasted; we mustn’t gad about so much; I ought to have been at the tables. Yes, I shall stay the month out, but the first of June we must go; remind me to take the roses off my new bonnet.” Her voice, overpowered by pins, ran into a mumble.
Jocelyn braced her slender, curving limbs against the wall. “Go!” The word brought her an unpleasant shock of reminder. She threw up her head impatiently. Her small, oval face looked very childish and young in the loose framework of dark hair, brushed in long, rippling tresses back over her shoulders. In the darkened room her slight figure, in its thin white covering, was dimly outlined, and the bare feet, thrust forward as she leaned back, gleamed in a little patch of light that came from the other room.
Mrs. Travis came to the door. She was more comfortable than ever in her night attire, with a comfort that threw off all attempt at decorative disguise, solely excepting curl papers.
“You naughty girl, you’re smoking!” she said.
Jocelyn shrugged her shoulders.
“It’s for the mosquitoes, and the nerves.”
“Well, I don’t like it—my dear mother would have had convulsions if she’d seen you. I don’t think it’s right! Shut your windows, and keep the mosquitoes out, as I do.” She sniffed.