“What d’you suppose Miss Addams is going to spring on us? I guessed French blind-man’s bluff for a start, with word-making and whist to cool off a bit on: but Mrs. D. says forfeits.... What, are you off?”
“Yes, I’ve a letter to write.”
“That’s the style: business before pleasure. I hope you write in a good light always: nothing worse for the eyes than writing in a bad light. It’s no good wishing you had your eyesight back again when it’s gone: the thing is to take care of it while you’re young. I saw a bit in the paper the other day—it was about reading in bed——”
But Amory fled.
As she dropped the portière of the drawing-room door behind her she encountered her aunt on the landing. She stopped. She was very angry with her aunt; she felt that her aunt was making of her, too, a laughing-stock. She turned her shallow brook-brown eyes, but hardly her head, as she spoke.
“I do think——” she began impetuously, and stopped. She stopped out of the sense that these things ought not to have to be said. In making it necessary for Amory to remark on them at all her aunt was putting her into a false position.
Miss Geraldine Towers had her hand on the knob of the door. She smiled, but did not turn the knob.
“What, dear?” she asked amiably.
“I do think you needn’t set them all talking the way you do. You might think of me a bit. Really, it’s rather much sometimes.”