“You might credit me with disliking the idea of it for us all,” she said. “You really are getting into the way of saying such disagreeable things, Betty.”
Before Betty had time to reply, perhaps fortunately so, Frances interrupted the discussion.
“My dear Eira,” she said, “it is all very well to treat Madeleine to the privileges of intimate friend in the shape of small family jars, but I really think you are overdoing it a little.”
“Yes,” agreed Madeleine, though the kindly laugh which accompanied her words took from them any possible sting. “You will end by making me the self-conscious one if you don’t take care. I shall feel as if I had been dreadfully disloyal to poor Elise if I have made you feel so about her! She is not unkind, and she does not mean to be censorious. It is only—I wish I could make you understand—that she has got an orthodox little conventional standard of her own that she tries to fit every one into, and if they won’t go in, why then—”
“A kind of bed of oh! what was the man’s name? It begins with P—Pro—” said Eira.
“Procrustes,” said Frances, with a smile; and Madeleine laughed. Only Betty remained grave.
“The results are not quite so terrible in Elise’s case,” said her sister-in-law. “You really need not be afraid of her. But I am rather afraid of my own sensations to-morrow! If the poor thing looks at you, or makes the mildest remark, you will suspect something personal! You, at least, Eira, will do so, and then you will get onto your high horse at once!”
“No, no,” said Frances, “she will not be so foolish. Mounting one’s high horse is a very lowering proceeding.”
“Yes,” said Eira, “I think I agree with you—on consideration. And if I come, Madeleine, please forget all the silly things I have said. Candidly speaking, I think my chief feeling about your sister-in-law is curiosity. I liked Mr Ryder Morion, and it is interesting to fit in what you have said of her with a certain amount of resemblance to him—her brother.”
But Eira’s curiosity was not destined to be directly gratified as soon as she expected. For Lady Emma, on receiving the invitation, decided that it was far better not to accept it too literally as regarded the “all of you,” and it was accompanied by her two elder daughters only that she set forth, the following afternoon, on the visit to the Craig-Morion of much more formality than the recent almost familiar intercourse which even the elders of the two households had half-unconsciously drifted into.