Peter opened the door—he was anxious for Jenny’s company, she would take his thoughts off recent complications. He helped her out, and signed to Appleby to drive on.
“We’ve been paying calls in Winchelsea,” said Jenny with a grimace—“Oh, Peter, this is a dog’s life.”
Peter would not have liked himself to spend an afternoon paying calls, but he regarded it as part of a woman’s duty, and rather disapproved of Jenny’s rebellion. He liked her, and admired her for her young well-bred loveliness, but lately he had begun to think she was getting too like Gervase....
“Somebody must pay calls,” he said a little gruffly.
“Why?” asked Jenny.
“Don’t be silly, my dear. You know it’s a social necessity.”
“Well, it oughtn’t to be—just knowing a lot of dull people because they live in the same neighbourhood and are of the same social standing as ourselves—keeping up our intercourse by means of perfunctory visits which we hate paying as much as they hate receiving ... carefully dodging the tea-hour, so that there’ll be no chance of any real hospitality...”
“So that’s how you choose to describe it——”
“That’s how it is.”
Peter said nothing. He told himself emphatically that Stella probably had exactly the same ideas. Now Vera, for all her intellect and modernity, never shirked her social obligations. Oh, he had done right, after all.