Claudia had instinctively felt that Lady Currey was the type of woman who disapproved of dogs in the house, so she had tied him up.
Pat surveyed the visitor with her clear blue eyes. Very precise and a little dowdy did Lady Currey look that day. Her grey silk was a dull shade, her ornaments were valuable, but belonged to the day when diamonds were deeply embedded in gold, her toque was as near to a bonnet as she could buy. Pat took it all in and her lips said “prunes and prism” behind their visitor’s back.
“Ripping day, isn’t it?” she said affably. “Doesn’t it make you feel as if you’d like to turn somersaults on the grass and yell like a wild Indian every time you come right side up?”
Claudia stifled a laugh at Lady Currey’s expression.
Of course, Sybil’s children would be terrible and lawless. She disliked anything so large and athletic as Pat, and privately thought that so much flesh and bone inclined to coarseness. She was of the small and tidy type herself.
“There’s no way of letting off steam nowadays, is there?” continued Pat, unabashed by Lady Currey’s stare, and crossing her legs so as to display a large expanse of silk-covered calf. “That’s why people get into mischief. They boil up inside, sometimes you can feel the bubbles!”
“That’s because you’re a very young kettle,” interposed Claudia hastily.
But at that moment—five minutes to two—Sybil Iverson glided into the room. Her figure was still wonderful, willowy and most seductive in its lissomness. She was wearing a dress that showed every curve of it, and the transparent guimpe of her bodice showed the gleam of her neck in a manner that Lady Currey found very indecent. Her hair, burnished and waved in a carefully negligent fashion, matched her slightly tinted complexion. The whole effect was pleasingly artificial, like that of some rare orchid. She was still Circe—after a careful toilette.
“Ah! Marian, what a long time since we met! But you are just the same.”
“We are both considerably older,” said the companion of her girlhood with emphasis.