“Good gracious, I'll excite attention in the street!” grinned Bob. “I didn't imagine I was a walking scent-factory!”
“Neither you are—but everything in this house smells of coal-smoke and cabbage-water and general fustiness, and you're a nice change, that's all,” said Cecilia. They ran downstairs together light-heartedly, and let themselves out into the street.
“Do we catch a train or a 'bus?”
“Oh, can't we walk?” Cecilia said. “I think if I walked hard I might forget Mrs. Rainham.”
“I'd hate you to remember her,” Bob said. “Tell me what she has been doing, anyhow, and then we won't think of her any more.”
“It doesn't sound much,” Cecilia said. “There never is anything very much. Only it goes on all the time.” She told him the story of her day, and managed to make herself laugh now and then over it. But Bob did not laugh. His good-humoured young face was set and angry.
“There isn't a whole lot in it, is there?” Cecilia finished. “And no one would think I was badly off—especially when the thing that hit me hardest of all was just dusting that awful drawing-room while she plays her awful tunes. Yes, I know I shouldn't say awful, and that no lady says it—that must be true because Mrs. Rainham frequently tells me so—but it's such a relief to say whatever I feel like.”
“You can say what you jolly well please,” said Bob wrathfully. “Who's she, I'd like to know, to tell us what to say? And she kept you there all the afternoon, when she knew you were due to meet me!—my hat, she is a venomous old bird! And now it's half-past four, and what time does she expect you back?”
“Oh—the usual thing; the children's tea-time at six. She told me not to be late.”
Bob set his jaw.