"But was that what did the job?... We-ell, I do not see anything to object to in that expression. Was it?"
"If you mean, dear, was it that that made us, me and Julius, feel that matters would get no better by waiting, I think perhaps it was.... Well, when it comes to meeting one's mother in Kensington Gardens, near the Speke Monument, and being bowed civilly
to, it seems to me it's high time.... Now, isn't it, Sally?"
Sally evaded giving testimony by raising other questions: "What did your father say?" "Did the Dragon tell him about the meeting in the park?" "What do you think he'll say now?"
"Now? Well, you know, I've got his letter. He's all right—and rather dear, I think. What do you think, Sally?"
"I think very."
"Perhaps I should say very. But with papa you never know. He really does love us all, after a fashion, except Egerton, only I'm never sure he doesn't do it to contradict mamma."
"Why don't they chuck each other and have done with it?" The vulgar child lets fly straight into the bull's-eye; then adds thoughtfully: "I should, only, then, I'm not a married couple."
Tishy elided the absurd figure of speech and ignored it. The chance of patronising was not to be lost.
"You are not married, dear. When you are, you may feel things differently. But, of course, papa and mamma are very odd. I used to hear them through my door between the rooms at L.B.G. Road. It was wrangle, wrangle, wrangle; fight, fight, fight; all through the night—till two o'clock sometimes. Oh dear!"