The plumed toque that crowns Mrs. Prince’s expensive toupet gives a dejected dip of assent.
“Does she know him?”
“Not from Adam. But that would never stop her writing to any one; no, nor speaking to them either!”
Another pause.
“She wants to go out to South Africa as a nurse, I suppose?”
Again the tall ostrich feathers wave acquiescence. This time a spoken elucidation follows.
“That is it, as far as we—her father and I—can make out.”
Lavinia draws a little nearer, and lays her hand upon the arm of her visitor’s chair, while her chin lifts itself, and then falls again in a movement of hopeless pity.
“I am very sorry indeed for you both! How does Mr. Prince take it? What does he say?”
“You can never get much out of Mr. Prince,” replies his wife, in a tone whose complaint is streaked with admiration for a verbal continence of which she feels herself quite incapable. “But he did say, in his dry way, that he should be sorry to be one of Féo’s patients.”