CHAPTER IV
“They must have a chef,” said Bonnybell after dinner to herself, as she and Camilla began to tread back their path through the long enfilade of rooms that led from the dining-room to the library, where, accompanied by ceiling-high books, the small family apparently spent its evenings. “The cuisine is better than the Glanvilles’. I fancy that philanthropic women very seldom have good cooks. Yes, they have a chef! What a fool he must be to spend two-thirds of the year in the country!”
As she and her hostess stood by the fire, Miss Ransome’s reflections took another turn.
“What a gloomy room! Not a single photograph about! How much better those old ancestors would look taken out of their frames and draped in light-blue velvet, as poor Claire did ours before she sold them!”
Mrs. Tancred, with an evident intention of industry, sat down by a green-shaded electric lamp, and drawing a roomy work-basket towards her, extracted from it a large piece of homely plain sewing.
“Ought I to set a footstool for her, or is she the kind of person who likes to do everything herself? Ah, it is as I thought,” as the diffidently offered support was rejected with the words—
“Thank you, my dear; but my legs are long, and I have no wish to have my knees knocking against my nose.”
“I am so sorry,” returned Bonnybell, humbly; “it is a silly habit that I have got into! Claire never could bear to be without a footstool!”
Mrs. Tancred’s seam remained suspended in mid air, the needle arrested in its journey, while through her spectacles her eyes, which looked far too penetratingly keen to need them, flashed in shocked displeasure at her visitor.
“Claire!” she repeated in an awful voice. “Who is Claire?”