“I am so sorry, Lady Marchendale. The child is such a little savage.”
“I think she’s a pet. You don’t want to make a little prig of her, do you?”
“She’s so undisciplined.”
“Oh, fudge! What you call being ‘savage,’ is being healthy and natural. You don’t want to make the child a woman before she’s been a child.”
The gong rang for tea.
Eve was painting in the rosery when Mrs. Brocklebank persuaded the members of the committee that she—and therefore they—wanted to see Mr. Canterton’s roses. It was a purely perfunctory pilgrimage, so far as Gertrude Canterton was concerned, and her voice struck a note of passive disapproval.
“I think there is much too much time and money wasted upon flowers.”
“Oh, Mrs. Canterton! But isn’t this just sweet!”
“I don’t know very much about roses, but I believe my husband’s are supposed to be wonderful.”
She sighted Eve, stared, and diverged towards her down a side path, smiling with thin graciousness.