"Philip, my name is! Philip Massel!"
"Quite nice!" she approved. "Mine's Ursula!"
"But I heard a lady say 'Mamie!'"
She frowned. "Oh, that's only my Jewish name—Mamie Jacobovitch. Of course you'll have heard my professional name, 'Ursula Daventry.' But I don't mind being called Mamie on holidays! But how long," she asked, changing the subject, "did you say you were staying? A fortnight, I suppose? I'm staying three weeks!"
"I thought girls weren't supposed to stay at Mrs. Kraft's, are they?"
"Oh, it's my precious mother's doing! She's gone off to Chester to help Auntie Bessie have a baby, although what good she'll do ... but I oughtn't to talk to you like this, you're only a kid after all!"
"You just said, you know, we're really the same age to all intents and purposes, didn't you?"
"Of course I did! Of course we are! Where was I! Oh, yes! Well, and mother's a cousin of Mrs. Hannetstein and Mrs. Hannetstein's a big friend of Mrs. Kraft and there you are. I'm just shunted out of the way! Not wanted in Chester! Not trusted on my own in Doomington! It's filthy! And to be locked up with a lot of old women!"
"I hope it won't be so rotten for you after all! If the weather keeps fine——"
"Don't be so hinty, Philip! But all right, in any case there isn't any real reason why we shouldn't go out together sometimes, is there?—so long as we keep it dark. I suppose Mrs. Kraft would pack me off straight away, the woman, if she sniffed that I was carrying on!"