"Well, I won't stop you, but I think it's a pity. Whatever made you think of such a thing?"
"The thing that you call inspiration, chum—I know another name for it now."
Freddy looked amazed; Meg had absorbed so many of Mike's strange ideas.
"I don't know Ireton," he said. His voice had grown colder.
"He married a Syrian—you wouldn't. The Lamptons don't do that sort of thing."
Freddy kept his temper, and the moment after Meg had said the words she felt ashamed, disgraced.
"I'm sorry, chum." She spoke gently. "It's my tongue that says these hateful things, not my heart. Forgive me, like a dear."
"All right, old girl." Freddy had never told his sister that he had refused the hospitality and cut himself off from the friendship of more than two English families, residents in Cairo, because they had taken a prominent part in the outcasting of Michael Ireton from English society when he had married Hadassah Lekejian. He knew that Margaret had spoken the words hastily and unthinkingly. When Meg's nerves were on edge was the only time she was ever cross and out of temper. "The Iretons are delightful people. If I'd known Ireton when he was a bachelor, I should have visited them after his marriage, but I didn't, and I haven't much time for paying society calls. Besides, it might have looked like patronizing them. The way they were treated by some of the English out here was so abominable that one had to be jolly careful. Ireton never minded a scrap—he's too big to care for the social rot that goes on out here, but all the same, I didn't like to make a point of calling. I'm a digger, Meg, not a resident with a house to invite people to."
"From what Mike told me, they must be the most delightful people. I can't imagine Hadassah snubbing me if I went to see her, can you?"
"I don't suppose she would. What will you say to her? It's a rum idea." Freddy became meditative.
"I don't know, but whatever one arranges to say on such occasions is just the thing one doesn't say. The atmosphere will suggest the words—it always does with me. I've never yet said the things I planned to say. Have you?"