Miss Grizel Hopkins, too—the cousin of an Earl, and Mrs Bedley the “Mother” of the English Colony, both had been ignored. It was true Ann Bedley kept a circulating library and a tea-room combined and gave “Information” to tourists as well (a thing she had done these forty years), but was that a sufficient reason why she should be totally taboo? No, in old Lord Clanlubber’s time all had been made welcome, and there had been none of these heartburnings at all. Even the Irish coachman of the Archduchess was known to have been received—although it had been outside of course upon the lawn. Only gross carelessness, it was felt, on the part of those attachés could account for the extraordinary present neglect.
“I don’t myself mind much,” Mrs Bedley said, who was seated over a glass of morning milk and “a plate of fingers” in the Circulating end of the shop: “going out at night upsets me. And the last time Dr Babcock was in he warned me not.”
“What is the Embassy there for but to be hospitable?” Mrs Barleymoon demanded from the summit of a ladder, from where she was choosing herself a book.
“You’re shewing your petticoat, dear—excuse me telling you,” Mrs Bedley observed.
“When will you have something new, Mrs Bedley?”
“Soon, dear ... soon.”
“It’s always ‘soon,’” Mrs Barleymoon complained.
“Are you looking for anything, Bessie, in particular?” a girl, with loose blue eyes that did not seem quite firm in her head, and a literary face enquired.
“No, only something,” Mrs Barleymoon replied, “I’ve not had before and before and before.”
“By the way, Miss Hopkins,” Mrs Bedley said, “I’ve to fine you for pouring tea over My Stormy Past.”