Jane said, slipping a hand into Eileen’s, “Oh, but you’ll have tea, won’t you? I’m so sorry; we ought to have had it earlier.... Do you know Mrs. Le Moine? Mrs. Crawford; and you know each other, of course,” she connected Eileen and Molly with a smile, and Molly put out a timid hand.
Mrs. Crawford’s bow was so slight that it might have been not a bow at all. “Thank you, but I’m afraid we mustn’t stop. We have enjoyed your delightful drawings exceedingly. Goodbye.”
“Must you both go?” said Eddy to Molly. “Can’t you stop and have tea and go home with me afterwards?”
“I’m afraid not,” Molly murmured, still rosy.
“Are you coming with us, Eddy?” asked Molly’s aunt, in her sweet, sub-acid voice. “No? Goodbye then. Oh, don’t trouble, please, Miss Dawn; Eddy will show us out.” Her faint bow comprehended the company.
Eddy came with them to their carriage.
“I’m sorry you won’t stop,” he said.
Mrs. Crawford’s fine eyebrows rose a little.
“You could hardly expect me to stop, still less to let Molly stop, in company with a lady of Mrs. Le Moine’s reputation. She has elected to become, as you of course are aware, one of the persons whose acquaintance must be dispensed with by all but the unfastidious. You are not going to dispense with it, I perceive? Very well; but you must allow Molly and me to take the ordinary course of the world in such matters. Goodbye.”
Eddy, red as if her words had been a whip in his face, turned back into the house and shut the door rather violently behind him, as if by the gesture he would shut out all the harsh, coarse judgments of the undiscriminating world. He climbed the stairs to the studio, and found them having tea and discussing pictures, from their own several points of view, not the world’s. It was a rest.