And yet, in reality, she was by no means so composed as she appeared. She felt as might one who, moved by a great purpose, had rashly usurped the prerogative of fate and set in motion mighty forces that, if they did not make for success, might easily make for disaster. She had very definitely stuck her thumb into somebody else's pie, and if her laudable intention was to draw forth a plum, not for herself but for the other, why, that was no proof that, in the end, she might not get smartly scorched for her pains.
When the summons to the dining-room actually came, Martha felt such an unsubstantiality in the region of her knee-joints, that for a moment she almost believed the bones had turned into breadcrumbs. Then energetically she shook herself into shape, spurning her momentary weakness from her, with an almost visible gesture, and marched forward to meet what awaited her.
Shaw had removed the breakfast dishes from the table beside which "Lord Ronald" sat alone. It was all very imposing, the place, the particular purpose for which she had been summoned, and which was, as yet, unrevealed to her, the person, most of all.
Martha thought that perhaps she had been a little hard on Cora, "the time she give her the tongue-lashin' for stumblin' over the first lines of her piece, that evenin' of the Sund'-School ent'tainment. It wasn't so dead easy as a body might think, to stand up to a whole churchful o' people, or even one person, when he was the kind that's as good (or as bad) as a whole churchful."
Martha could see her now, as she stood then, announcing to the assembled multitude in a high, unmodulated treble:
"It was the t-time when l-lilies bub-blow"
"an' her stockin' fixin' to come down any min'ute!"
"Ah, Martha, good-morning!"
At the first sound of his voice Mrs. Slawson recovered her poise. That wouldn't-call-the-queen-your-cousin feeling came over her again, and she was ready to face the music, whatever tune it might play. So susceptible is the foolish spirit of mortal to those subtle, impalpable influences of atmosphere that we try to describe, in terms of inexact science, as personality, vibration, aura, magnetism.
"I asked to see you, Martha, because Radcliffe tells me—"