"I dare say it's very clever and very wise. But I can't understand a word of it, and you can't expect me to. All I know is, that if it's to be submission and Colossians and Ephesians and stuff, back to Reginald I don't go. And as far as I can see, Science only makes it ten times worse.... So there!"
"Your attitude of mind, my dear Euphemia," said Miss Volumnia, "furnishes the strongest confirmation possible of the truth of my interpretation of the Phenomenon. But I must go or I shall lose my train."
"How I do hate patronizing people!" said Mrs. Aiken, going back into the drawing-room after seeing her cousin off.
CHAPTER VIII
How Mrs. Euphemia Aiken found Madeline at home, who consequently did not go to a Bun-Worry. But she had met Miss Bax. How these ladies each confessed to Bogyism, of a sort, and Madeline said make it up. How Mr. Aiken took Mr. Tick's advice about Diana, but could not find his Transparent Oxide of Chromium. Man at his loneliest. No Tea. And what a Juggins he had been! Of Mrs. Gapp's dipsomania. The Boys. How Mr. Aiken lit the gas, and heard a cab. How he nearly kissed Madeline, who had brought his wife home, but it was only a mistake, glory be! Was there soap in the house?
Mrs. Aiken tortured her speculating powers for awhile with endeavours to put this curious event on an intelligible footing, and was before long in a position to "dismiss it from her mind"; or, if not quite that, to give it a month's notice. It certainly seemed much less true on the second day after it happened than on the first; and, at that rate, in a twelvemonth it would never have happened at all. But her passive acceptance of a thing intrinsically impossible and ridiculous—because, of course, we know, etc., etc.—was destined to undergo a rude shock. After taking her Aunt's advice about the duration of the usual pause—not to seem to have too violent a "Sehnsucht" for your card-leavers—the lady paid her visit to Miss Upwell at her parents' stuck-up, pretentious abode in Eaton Square. We do not give the number, as to do so would be to bring down a storm of inquiries from investigators of phenomena.
She gave her card to the overfed menial, who read it—and it was no business of his! He then put it upside down—his upside down—on a salver, for easy perusal by bloated oligarchs. The voice of an oligarch rang out from the room he disappeared into, quite deliciously, and filled the empty house.
Madeline was delighted to see Mrs. Aiken; had been going to a Bun-Worry. Now she should do nothing of the sort; she would much rather have tea at home, and a long talk with Mrs. Aiken. She confirmed this by cancelling her out-of-door costume, possibly to set the visitor at her ease. Anyhow, it had that effect. In fact, if either showed a trace of uneasiness, it was Madeline. She more than once began to say something she did not finish, and once said "Never mind," to excuse her deficit. Of course Mrs. Aiken had not the slightest idea of what was passing in her mind; or rather, imputed it to a hesitation on the threshold of sympathetic speech about her own domestic unhappiness.
Now the portion of this conversation that the story is concerned with came somewhere near the middle of it, and was as follows: