"But of course you could——"
"No I couldn't," she rapped out. "I mean I just can't help it. How can anybody help it? How can anybody do anything about it? It's a thing that happens to you, and it happened to them before, and I expect they did just as they liked about it, and didn't care a bit what anybody said! I can just see mother if anybody'd said she wasn't going for a walk with father!"
"You can't see anything of the sort, Jennie. If I remember rightly what your mother said, she had to sit still in her own carriage till her own footman opened the door. That was what happened when your mother was your age."
"Well, they don't do that nowadays, and mother knows it," she retorted.
The heartless logic of youth! It will turn your own words against you as soon as look at you. Because her mother had recognised that the world did not stand still she was to be made an accessory to this deception.
"Then," I said presently, "if they don't know, ought I to know?"
"You knew before," she said. "They didn't."
"But they're bound to find out."
"Oh, I expect everything will be settled by then!" she calmly announced.
The dickens it would! I lay back on my pillow. Fortunately the appearance of tea at that moment gave me a little time in which to collect my thoughts. Jennie removed various objects from the bedside table, took the tray from the maid, and began to pour out.