“What aren’t shreds are patches,” said she to the pigeons. “Dear me! Fancy having married a person who hasn’t been properly mended since he left England.” The pigeons replied with suitable sympathy. There was a roll of wheels under the porch, and the bearer brought up cards, “Mr. and Mrs. John Lawrence Lovitt.”
“Bearer,” said Helen, mistress of the situation, “all these things lejao![[75]] Memsahib salaam do.”[[76]]
[75]. Take away.
[76]. Give greeting.
“Bahut atcha,”[[77]] said the bearer, whisking them away as he went. Not for worlds would Kasi have allowed his master’s dilapidations to become public. And Mrs. Jack Lovitt tripped up.
[77]. Very good.
“How d’ye do, Mrs. Browne?” she said. “I hope I haven’t come too soon. Some one told me you’d been seen—somewhere—church, I suppose. People always do go to church at first, in Calcutta. After a while you won’t—at least not so regularly. It gets to be rather a bore, don’t you know, either morning or evening. In the morning it takes it out of you so that you haven’t energy to receive your callers, and in the evening—well, if you go in for Sunday tennis you’re too much done for church. But perhaps you won’t go in for Sunday tennis.”
Mrs. Lovitt sank into a chair and crossed her knees so that one small high-heeled boot stuck out at a sharp and knowing angle. She was a very little person, and she wore a very smart gown, though it was only a spotted cotton, and a very small bonnet. Her long-handled parasol had an enormous bow on it, and her small hands were buttoned up in an excessive amount of kid. She had a tiny waist, and her dress fitted her with an absurd perfection. There was a slight extravagance about Mrs. Jack Lovitt everywhere. No one could describe her without saying “very” and “exceedingly” a great many times. Her thin little face hadn’t a shade of colour—it was absolutely pale, and there were odd little drawn lines about it that did not interfere with its particular kind of attractiveness. She wore a pince nez astride her small, sharp features, and when she sat down it dropped into her lap quite as if it belonged to a man of fashion.
Helen said, with a conscious effort not to be priggish, that she didn’t think she would go in for Sunday tennis.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Lovitt, smiling tolerantly, “don’t believe in it, I suppose? Neither did I when I came out. You’ll soon get over that. You’ll begin virtuously by doing it for your husband’s sake, and by and by you’ll find that kind of prejudice doesn’t thrive in India. I played with your husband the last Sunday before you came out. The other side completely smashed us up; I don’t think your husband was in his usual form.”