'I say, just fancy,' said Evie, 'those sequin tunics at B. & H.'s have come down to seven and eleven three. I think I could rise to that, even in war time.'
The war mainly affected Evie by reducing the demand for hats, and consequently lowering the salary she received at the exclusive and ladylike milliner's where she worked.
As she spoke she caught sight of her three-quarter likeness as etched by Alix.
'Goodness gracious,' she commented. 'You've made me look anything on earth! I mayn't be much, but I hope I'm not that sort of freak.'
'It's very good,' said Alix complacently. 'Rather particularly good. I shall take it to the School on Monday and show it to Mr. Bendish.'
'It may be good,' said Evie, 'since you say so. All I say is, it isn't me. It's more like some wild woman out of a caravan. Don't you go telling people it's me, or they'll be coming to shut me up. There's the bell; that's them.'
The Vinney party arrived. It consisted of Mr. Vincent Vinney, a bright young solicitor of twenty-eight; his lately acquired wife, a pretty girl who laughed when he was witty, which was often; his young brother Sidney, a stout, merry youth of nineteen, a bank clerk; and their cousin Miss Simon, the fat girl in the sailor blouse, which was, it seemed, her evening toilette also. (In case some should blame the Vinney brothers for not taking an active part in the war, it may be remarked that the elder supported a wife and the younger a mother, that they represented a class which, for several good reasons, produces fewer soldiers than any other, and that they both belonged to the Clerks' Drill Corps, and wore several flags on their bicycles. And young Mrs. Vinney belonged to a Voluntary Aid Detachment, not at present in working.)
They came in with the latest news. The British had been driven back out of a thousand yards of trench they had taken. They hadn't enough ammunition.
'Well,' said Mrs. Frampton, knitting, and really more interested in her heel than in the fortunes of war, 'it's all very dreadful to think of. But I suppose we must leave it in the hands of the Almighty, who always moves in a mysterious way.'
(Mrs. Frampton had been brought up evangelically, and so mentioned the Almighty more casually than Kate, who was High, thought fit.)