'My mother! That's where my CARMEN comes from—only that my voice, I'm told, isn't to be compared with what hers was.... But that's not the worst about my mother. Not that I blame her. I think that a woman has a perfect right to leave her husband if she has ceased to care for him, and that it's far more moral to live with a man you love and can't marry, than with a husband you hate.'
Mrs Gildea cut short Lady Bridget's exposition of her views on morality before McKeith had time to answer. Her voice was sharp as she went up the steps and arraigned the pair.
'Really, Biddy, I do call this too bad of you. May I ask how you and Mr McKeith come to be drinking tea together in my veranda?'
'Sure, and it's by accident intoirely,' answered Biddy, with a whimsical look and the touch of the brogue she sometimes put on when a situation became embarrassing.
'A prearranged accident!'
'No it wasn't, Joan. As a matter-of-fact, we were the last persons either of us expected to meet.'
'Honour bright,' put in McKeith. 'I'd forgotten all about the Pineapple Products Exhibition, and I just dropped in at Government House to pay my respects after a pleasant dinner two nights ago—What you'd call a visit of digestion.'
'And since when, Colin, have you become an observer of social obligations?' jeered Mrs Gildea.
He grinned, 'Ah! you have me there. Anyway, I asked for Lady Bridget, and found her down by the boat-shed.'
'And we thought it would be cooler on the water, so he rowed me round the point. It was the most natural thing in the world that we should discover we were thirsty, and that we should come up the garden and ask your old woman to give us some tea. Don't be a cat, Joan. You never used to be grudging of your hospitality.'