“I was surprised that any one coming from your house, any girl under your wing, should be intimate to the degree of Christian-naming with Lady Tennington.”
“I am to understand, then, that it is on the score of her acquaintance with Lady Tennington that you have come to complain of Miss Ransome?”
The glaring inconsistency with their own practice thus coldly fastened upon them loosened still further the string of both intruders’ tongues.
“What a misrepresentation!” said Catherine, in a low key of indignation; and, “Oh, dear Camilla, how you do manage to put one in the wrong when one knows that one is absolutely in the right!” cried her more emotional mother.
Camilla’s reply was to fold her bony hands.
“I wait for an explanation.”
“I came to speak to you about the girl,” returned the other, attacking her words at a great pace, for fear they should decline to come at all, “not because I have any grudge against her—in fact, I was very much prepossessed by her appearance—but because—because—I am afraid—I really and truly think that she is not a fit companion for my children.”
There was a slight pause.
“You think that because the fathers have eaten sour grapes the children’s teeth should be set on edge? Well, there is a good deal to be said in favour of your view.”
The cold impartiality aimed at, if not quite attained, in this utterance with its underlying suggestion of Pharisaism in the person addressed, called forth a hurried retort.