“Lynette could not read when she was six.”
“That was a gross crime, Gertrude, to be sure.”
“It might be called symptomatic.”
“Mrs. Brocklebank, my wife is too conscientious for some of us.”
“Can one be too conscientious, Mr. Canterton?”
“Well, I can never imagine Gertrude with holes in her stockings, or playing at honey-pots. I believe you wrote a prize essay when you were eleven, Gertrude, and the subject was, ‘How to teach children to play in earnest.’ If you’ll excuse me, I have to see Lavender about one of the hothouses before I dress for dinner.”
He left them together, sitting like two solemn china figures nodding their heads over his irresponsible love of laissez-faire. Mrs. Brocklebank had no children, but she was a great authority upon them, in a kind of pathological way.
“I think you ought to make a stand, Gertrude.”
“The trouble is, my husband’s ideas run the same way as the child’s inclinations. I think I must get rid of Miss Vance. She is too easygoing.”
“The child ought soon to be old enough to go to school. Let me see, how old is she?”