Mrs. Turle, anxious for perfect harmony, and knowing—also sharing—the local skepticism regarding Mrs. Clutton’s husband, put in blandly:
“Mr. Clutton is a journalist. He has gone for a tour round the world.”
“Oh!”
Maria Furlonger’s wide smile full in Mrs. Clutton’s face was a little dangerous.
Mrs. Turle added quite irrelevantly:
“Poor Mrs. Peter Hone has another baby. That’s twelve.”
“Sympathy is wasted on the poorer classes,” Mrs. Clutton put in, with her calm, dogmatic air. “You pet them too much. Once it was lap-dogs; now it’s paupers. Any old dame with a clean apron and a courtesy, any old man with his trousers tied round the calf and his chin like stubble, can take you in. Merely a question of livery! Now, it is the man in the top hat who wants petting—the man who is at his wits’ end to keep up his insurance payments.”
The tea bell rang. They all filed solemnly into the dining-room.
Maria Furlonger, who was rather taken with Pamela’s silence, which, of course, meant modesty, began to tell her graciously about the old Manor House at Carrsland, where her father, Jethro’s mother’s brother, had been born.
“It’s a very old place. There is a moat all round. It has been filled up.”