The adjective is scarcely on the level of refinement held before her own eyes by the poor lady, but the tear that moistens condones it.
“What is it now?” asks the girl, with a resolute banishing to the back of her mind of the intense annoyance and apprehension caused by the odious intrusion of Féodorovna, and sitting down beside her guest with resolute and patient sympathy.
“I never look at her letters,” says Mrs. Prince, lowering her voice, which has taken on a tone of eager relief. “You know I do not; but she had left it with her others for the butler to stamp. He had it in his hand; it was at the top. I could not help seeing the address.”
“Not again? She has not been writing to General —— again?”
The expression of tragic repulsion in her young companion’s face seems to get upon Mrs. Prince’s nerves.
“How you do jump down one’s throat!” she cries peevishly. “No, of course she has not!”
“It was stupid of me to suggest it! To whom, then?”
“I really could not help seeing,” continues the elder woman, mollified and apologetic for her own action. “It was no case of prying, but I could not help reading, ‘Surgeon-General Jameson, Army Medical Department, Victoria Street, Westminster.’”
There is a pregnant pause.
“Surgeon-General Jameson!” repeats Lavinia. “He is Director-General of the R.A.M.C., isn’t he?”