"Oh," said Lady Harrison again, fingering the brooch, "that's—very nice—very nice indeed."
"Well", said Alice, turning the doorknob as a preliminary to her exit, "I'll leave 'er along o' you, shall I, ma'am, an' go see to my packin'."
"A-a-yes," said Lady Harrison, "yes, do. That's—that's very nice—quite."
Alice backed out and clicked the door shut easily. She had not yet collected her wages, or she would have banged the door—as a parting sign that she was emancipated, and therefore free to be delightfully saucy and flopping.
Whether it was that Alice had, in some queer way, been the discordant note; or that the young woman and the middle-aged one, so oppositely natured and each possessing what the other lacked, flowed at once mentally to a comfortable, common level of distributed qualities; or whether it was that Daisy's comely and now double-dimpled pleasantness as she waited guardedly for the other to speak, just naturally made communications easy: it is certain that Lady Harrison's restraint, as soon as the door closed behind the sour-faced Alice, slipped away so easily and wholly that she herself was agreeably surprised. She pulled down her spectacles from her forehead and settled them across her nose. As she did this the mistress of the big Harrison house looked more homelike and motherly than ever. Daisy's warmth toward her increased proportionately.
"How do you do," said Lady Harrison, stepping largely and simply and rustlingly over, until Daisy, her chin up and irises glinting with a pleasant dancing watchfulness, stood right beneath the regard of the kind brown eyes. The mistress pointed her greeting by extending one of her large wandering hands.
"I'm quite well," Daisy smiled up as she gave the stock response.
"I think we'll sit down," said Lady Harrison, moving to where two chairs stood sociably together.