"To any child born in the East, English nursery-life is impossibly terrifying," and Mrs. Carmichael apologetically sought the support of her guests. "Since Peter went to school she has had to sleep alone. It's all very well for Robin to call me weak but I can't believe it is good for a child's nerves to..."
Another wail crescendoed to the uttermost heights of horror and died away.
"That noise does not improve mine," Robin Carmichael answered dryly: "What is the nurse thinking of?"
"It's her evening out."
And, inwardly, his wife sighed for their return to Burma where servants did not have evenings out, and ... and people were too enslaved to official etiquette to show their feelings at dinner-parties.
A chair grated harshly back, rumpling the rug on the polished parquet floor.
"Let me go up to her for a moment," said Cyprian, "I undertook to visit the nursery when I arrived but was told she had gone to sleep."
Well, if it would take his mind off himself and his stricken face from the vicinity of the Hon. Mrs. Porter, who was beginning to wear a worried look. Mrs. Carmichael knew that Robin would say that it was all wrong, of course, in the morning, but she could hardly let Ferlie howl throughout dinner and, if the parlour-maid went up, Rose would have to hand round the fish single-handed and she was under notice to go, and therefore, under no obligation to behave. In Burma there had always been someone to sit with Ferlie if she woke.
"Tell her to go to sleep at once then," and Ferlie's mother favoured Cyprian with an indulgent smile. His fondness for the child was really too quaint. In the circumstances, pathetic.
The incident might well arouse Muriel's better nature ... but no, not quite.