Madeleine Tonbridge replied tartly, that if he was a poor-law guardian, and responsible for a barrack school it was no cause for boasting. She had not long parted with another of his girls, who had tried on her blouses, and gone out in her boots. She thought of offering the new girl a free and open choice of her wardrobe to begin with, so as to avoid unpleasantness.
"We all know that every mistress has the maid she deserves," said
Winnington, deep in gingerbread cake. "I leave it there—"
"Yes, jolly well do!" cried Nora, who had come to sit on a stool in front of her mother and Winnington, her eager eyes glancing from one to the other—"Don't start Mummy on servants, Mr. Winnington. If you do, I shall go to bed. There's only one thing worth talking about—and that's—"
"Maumsey!" he said, laughing at her.
"Have you accomplished anything?" asked Lady Tonbridge. "Don't tell me you've dislodged the Fury?"
Winnington shook his head.
"J'y suis—j'y reste!"
"I thought so. There is no civilised way by which men can eject a woman. Tell me all about it."
Winnington, however, instead of expatiating on the Maumsey household, turned the conversation to something else—especially to Nora's first attempts at golf, in which he had been her teacher. Nora, whose reasonableness was abnormal, very soon took the hint, and after five minutes' "chaff" with Winnington, to whom she was devoted, she took up her work and went back to the garden.
"Nobody ever snubs me so efficiently as Nora," said Madeleine Tonbridge, with resignation, "though you come a good second. Discreet I shall never be. Don't tell me anything if you don't want to."