Poor Mrs Clay did not dare to open her mouth, though she in her secret heart felt as indignant about it as Mr Howroyd.
But Sarah had no such qualms. 'You'll have to redecorate this room if you're going to smoke here, and you'll have to find us another drawing-room. Ladies don't sit in a drawing-room where men smoke,' she said.
'Daughters sit where their parents tell them, if they're worthy of the name of daughters.—But, if you don't mind, Mark, we'll go into your study; we can talk better alone,' said her uncle before Sarah's father could say anything.
Whether motives of economy moved him, or whether it was a certain influence which Bill Howroyd, as he was familiarly called, had over most people, Mark Clay got up from his seat, saying, 'Yes, we'll be better without that pert lass's company, Bill,' and led the way to his study.
'That's a blessing!' said Sarah. 'A nice state of things it would be if father took to smoking his horrid pipe here.'
'It would ruin the rose-coloured brocade, and the curtains would smell 'orrid,' said her mother.
'That wouldn't be so bad as not having a single room free from him,' said Sarah, and then added to her brother, who got up at the time, 'Where are you going, George?'
'To have a smoke,' he replied.
'You can smoke your cigarette here, dear; no one would smell that,' said the fond mother.
'Thank you, mother; but I thought of smoking with my father and uncle,' he replied.