“Then she took up the bodice and examined it critically.
“‘It’s a bit rotten, of course,’ she remarked, pulling cautiously at the stuff, ‘but where’d you buy satin now to last as well as that? and bought abroad, too.’
“The subtlest inflection of resentment was in her tone.
“‘Here, give them to me,’ she said. ‘Granny can’t want these old rags, messing up the house. There’s little enough cupboard room anyhow. I’ll put the shawl away up in the attic, for there’s wear in it yet, but the rest can go on the midden.’
“I detained her.
“‘Tell me first, how comes your grandmother to have these things?’
“She was surprised at my ignorance.
“‘To start with, she’s father’s grandmother, not mine. She’s so old, I forget her mostly.... She’s ninety-six, ninety-seven come Christmas. We’re wondering if she’ll last to a hundred.’
“How callous she was! Triply callous, I thought, because of her own youth, because of her great-grandmother’s extreme age, and because of the natural philosophic indifference of her class towards life and death.
“‘She was a dancer, once, you know,’ she went on. ‘Used to dance on the stage, and my great-grandfather found her there, and married her. What a tiny little thing she must have been, just look at this,’ and she held the little bodice across her own breast with a gay laugh, like a child trying to put on the clothes of its biggest doll.