'Mamma!' said Frances, and then she stopped short. 'It's too lovely, I can't speak.'
Eugene was stroking his mother's mantle. It was of soft downy material, rich in colour and texture.
'How pretty!' he said.
Jacinth glanced at it and the rest of her mother's attire, and at her mother herself. She felt proud of her, of her undeniable beauty and air of distinction—proud to present her to Lady Myrtle—and yet——
'I wonder if mamma is very much taken up with her clothes,' she thought. 'I wonder if she is extravagant. I expect I shall have to take a good deal upon me, as Lady Myrtle said. I suppose people in India really grow very unpractical.'
Poor Lady Myrtle! Little had she intended her words to be thus travestied.
But the reflection was not disagreeable to Jacinth, to whom a position of responsibility and management was always congenial. She took her mother's hand in hers, and smiling at Eugene replied: 'Yes indeed. What lovely fur trimming, mamma! And what a pretty bonnet! You couldn't have had that in India, surely?'
'No,' said Mrs Mildmay, smiling back at her children, 'I got one or two things in London yesterday. I thought you would like me to look nice, especially as I was going straight to Robin Redbreast. I don't believe poor dear Aunt Alison would have seen any difference if I had come back in the same clothes I went away in all those years ago.'
'No,' agreed Frances, 'I don't believe she would.'
But Jacinth looked a little grave; she could not quite 'make out' her mother.