"I'm all attention, Barry."
"Well, Rose is away for the day, and Mrs. Rose invited a girl-cousin down for the afternoon; and to do honour to her, I imagine, she had provided a sumptuous tea, including shrimps and one of those wobbly white things that you get at lunch."
"I see. Well?"
"Well, we—Mrs. Anstey, Olive and I—chose to pay a call to-day; and when, after a little hesitation, Mrs. Rose asked us to have some tea, we were taken into the dining-room, where these festal delicacies were laid out."
"And then?"
"Well, it would have been all right—Mrs. Anstey is a dear, and Olive of course is a ripper—and we'd have had a very jolly little party, but unfortunately in the middle of it who should arrive but Lady Martin and that terrible daughter of hers."
"Lady Martin of soap fame?"
"The same. Well, you know what an utter snob the woman is. In two minutes she had Toni—Mrs. Rose—reduced to a jelly—simply by sneering at everything."
"Including the—shrimps?"
"Yes. You know shrimps are—well—a bit vulgar, aren't they?"