"Well?" said Lady Maxwell, turning to her new visitor as she handed him some tea, "were you as much taken with the grandmother as the grandmother was taken with you? She told me she had never seen a 'more haffable gentleman, nor one as she'd a been more willin to ha done for'!"
George laughed. "I see," he said, "that my report has been anticipated."
"Yes—I have been there. I have found a 'case' in them indeed—alack! The granny—I am afraid she is an unseemly old woman—and the elder girl both work for the Jew son-in-law on the first floor—homework of the most abominable kind—that girl will be dead in a year if it goes on."
George was rapidly conscious of two contradictory impressions—one of pleasure, one of annoyance—pleasure in her tall, slim presence, her white hand, and all the other flashing points of a beauty not to be denied—and irritation that she should have talked "shop" to him with her first breath. Could one never escape this altruistic chatter?
But he was not left to grapple with it alone, for Lady Leven looked up quickly.
"Mr. Watton, will you please take Lady Maxwell's tea away if she mentions the word 'case' again? We gave her fair warning."
Lady Maxwell hastily clasped both her hands round her tea-cup.
"Betty, we have discussed the opera for at least twenty minutes."
"Yes—at peril of our lives!" said Lady Leven. "I never talked so fast before. One felt as though one must say everything one had to say about Melba and the de Reszkes, all in one breath—before one's poor little subject was torn from one—one would never have such a chance again."
Lady Maxwell laughed, but coloured too.