"You need not be so testy, Euphemia. Nothing is easier than for me to make no reference to Mr. Groob, who has never so much as called. His sister Arethusa is, of course, not the same thing as he is himself, but no doubt she may know something about this Society."
"I thought her an odious girl. Anyhow, I don't want to know anything at all about the Society, and it's no concern of mine. Reginald must go his own way now, and put his name down for subscriptions just as he likes.... Oh yes, I shall answer his last letter, but only to say that, if he wants me to read his next one, the tone must be very different."
Her aunt said, as one with whom patience is habitual, and tolerance a foregone conclusion: "It is perfectly useless for me to repeat, Euphemia, what I believe to be your duty as a Christian towards your lawful husband, which Reginald is and continues to be, however disgracefully he may have behaved; and you acted with your eyes open in the face of warnings of his lawless Bohemian habits. He—is—your—HUSBAND, and your obvious duty is..."
"Oh, do shut up with Corinthians!" was the rude, impatient, and indeed irreligious interruption. "If you mean that a woman is bound to put up with anything and everything, no matter what her husband says or does ... What?"
"My dear Euphemia, if I have told you once, I have told you fifty times, that it is not Corinthians, but Colossians—Colossians three eighteen. Besides, I'm sure there was a ring at the bell."
There was, and therefore the chronic guerilla warfare—for this sort of thing always went on until visitors stopped it—was suspended until the next opportunity.
The ring at the gate-bell was—or was caused by—Miss Jessie Bax, another niece, who was shy and seventeen. She began everything she said with "Oh!" The first words she uttered were, "Oh, I mustn't stop!" But she had previously said to Anne, at the gate, "Oh, I mustn't come in!" and when overcome on this point by Euphemia, who came out and kissed her, not without satisfaction—because she was that sort—she only just contrived to say, "Oh, I only came to bring these from Volumnia. It's to-morrow night at the Suburbiton Athenæum, where the Psychomorphic meets till the new rooms are ready, and she hopes you'll come."
Miss Jessie explained that she was, strictly speaking, an emanation from her sister Volumnia. That young lady was thirteen years her senior, and was a powerful individuality. She entered into inquiries, and advocated causes. Miss Jessica, on the contrary, flirted.
Was it, this time, advocating causes, or entering into inquiries? Mrs. Aiken, fearing the former, was consoled when she found it was the latter. She would look at the Syllabus tendered, whatever it was, and wouldn't detain Miss Jessie, whose anxiety not to come in need not have been laid so much stress on. It presently appeared that this wish to stop out was not unconnected with Charley Somebody, who was playing with a puppy on the other side of the road. A suggestion that Charley Somebody should come in too was met with so earnest a disclaimer of intention to disturb any fellow-creature anywhere, at any time, that it would have been sheer downright cruelty to press the point. So the young lady and Master Charley, whoever he was, escaped, and were heard whistling for the puppy, who was getting quite good, and learning to follow beautifully.
"What is it?" said Aunt Priscilla.