“No, but it’s good for the rest of us. We can’t live in the house with her otherwise.”
Ann stared. She did not know how to cope with this kind of woman. Mrs. Bryce made her feel a clumsy fool, a sort of country bumpkin.
“This isn’t my job anyway, it’s Wally’s. He is guiding Isabelle’s destiny this summer. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Yes, but I thought the child’s mother would naturally want to say——” blundered Ann.
“Well, her mother doesn’t. Do anything you can to make her less of a nuisance, that’s my only advice.”
It was clear that the interview was ended, so Ann rose. With glowing appeal Mrs. Bryce turned her pretty face, with its sudden smile, upon the girl.
“Nice, kind Miss Barnes, don’t bother me about Isabelle, will you? She bores me to death.”
Ann got out of the room somehow. She felt cold shivers down her spine, as if she had touched something revolting. She thought of her mother, and Jinny, the little sister nearest Isabelle’s age. She was so homesick for them, she just thought she would die. She went to the nursery where she had left Isabelle, and, as she entered, the child was shaking hands with an imaginary guest, saying in perfect imitation of her mother’s manner: “Oh, howdye do, Mrs. Page?”
“Dorothy and Reginald and I are having a bridge party,” she explained.