Teresa went out and met Strickland in the passage. She was dusting the hall. “Can we have the toast, please?” Teresa asked.
“It isn’t made,” Strickland replied coldly. “I couldn’t be spoken to like that. I shall leave at the end of the month. I’m not accustomed to be blasted.” Teresa touched her on the shoulder. “Never mind Father,” she said. “We none of us do. He’s most affectionate really. Forget the toast; I’ll tell them.” She went back into the dining-room and shut the door. Mrs. Fulton was offering dainty morsels of sentiment about hospitals to Captain Hatton, who disposed of them one by one with the indifference a sea lion shows about the quality of the fish thrown into its mouth. Teresa sat down by her father and said in a low voice, “You mustn’t swear at the maids, you know. Strickland is very angry and was going to go, but I told her you are all right. I don’t know if she will recover, but you must remember that you don’t have the trouble of going to registry offices.”
“What an eternal curse women’s feelings are,” he grumbled as he pulled out a cigarette case. “I believe they grow fat on them.”
“But then, you see, your men have none at all,” she explained, “which is as bad the other way, because you can’t make them hear except by blasting and all those kinds of words that mean nothing.”
“But they do mean something,” argued her aggrieved father. “They mean, ‘You’ve damn well got to do it and look sharp.’”
“Yes, but if you say to a woman, ‘Be quick, Pansy dear,’ she does it just as well.”
Cyril roared with laughter. “Here, Hatton,” he said, “do you know what you’ve got to say to the mess sergeant the next time he keeps you waiting? ‘Be quick, Pansy dear!’ Will you try it first or shall I?” Captain Hatton laughed.
“What is Dicky saying?” asked Mrs. Fulton indulgently.
“Explaining the art of commanding those of unripe station,” said the General. “Come on to my room, Hatton, and I’ll leave you there while I get some clothes on—if they’re not all over toast and tears,” he added resentfully.
“Good heavens! What a man!” Evangeline exclaimed when the door shut behind them. “He’s like an umbrella.”