And Emmie, firm and explanatory, said that such a “chip-in” as Amundsen’s simply isn’t done. She knew as a fact that in such cases warning was always given. And continuing, she boldly named the name. It was not only Captain Scott who would be upset, there were the Japanese to think of—and the private expedition that was being conducted by Mr. Anthony Dyke.
“Oh, yes,” said somebody. “Dyke. Yes, to be sure. Dyke’s one of the most famous of them all, isn’t he?”
Mrs. Bell had moved on and was talking to a middle-aged couple who had just arrived at the party; but if she had heard Dyke’s name mentioned, it would scarcely have aroused any recollection of the annoyance and trouble that he had once caused. That old scandal was so completely dead that the most vindictive enemy could not now have revived it, and nothing perhaps better proved the esteem in which Miss Verinder was held by all these people than Mrs. Bell’s manner when presently introducing two of them to her. They were the late arrivals, a Mr. and Mrs. Parker, of Ennismore Gardens. They themselves had craved the introduction, and they said their nurse had told them of the very charming way in which Miss Verinder had spoken one morning to their little girl Mildred on her pony outside the front door. They thanked Miss Verinder for her kindness.
Miss Verinder said she deserved no thanks; she was very fond of children; and she thought their daughter such an intelligent, pretty little thing.
“Well, she really is,” said Mrs. Parker, enormously gratified; and she and Mr. Parker together related that the child was good as well as attractive; a quite extraordinarily obedient child—“so different from her brothers”—seeming to take the sweetest kind of pleasure in doing exactly as she was bid.
Miss Verinder said that was very nice indeed, and then she rather startled both Parkers by asking, “What will you do with her when she is grown up? I suppose you mean to give her some sort of profession?”
“Oh, come,” said Mr. Parker, with a foolish chuckle, “I shouldn’t have expected you of all people, Miss Verinder, to say that.”
“No,” said Mrs. Parker. “Surely you’re not modern? You don’t believe in letting girls leave home, and make careers for themselves, and all that?”
“No, no, Miss Verinder is not serious,” said Mr. Parker, smiling and nodding his head. “In spite of all the talk nowadays, the best career for young ladies is just what it always was—marriage! Unless, of course,” he added hastily, “a young lady, to the surprise of her friends and admirers, declines—ah, refuses—herself deciding that she prefers—possessing the cultivated and informed type of mind that does not seek—or perhaps I should say, does not brook—domestic ties”; and he embarrassed himself badly in his efforts to convey the polite opinion that, although Miss Verinder was an old maid, she might have married many, many times had she wished to do so. Then he wound up in regard to his own daughter by indicating that when Mildred was old enough, say, in ten years time, he would select for her a suitable husband, somebody that her parents both trusted and liked, and the docile, obedient Mildred would take him and say thank-you.