"She has some old-fashioned ideas. But how about calling him a shop-boy?"
"Not in words, but worse. Tishy always goes round and round. I wish she'd say! However, Dr. Vereker quite agrees with me. We think it dishonest!"
"What did Dr. Vereker think of Mr. Bradshaw?" We have failed to note that the doctor was the 'cello in the quartet.
"Now, mamma darling, fancy asking Dr. Prosy what he thinks! I wasn't going to. Besides, as if it mattered what they think of each other!... Who? Why, men, of course!"
"Mr. Fenwick's a man, and you asked him."
"Mr. Fenwick's a man on other lines—absolutely other. He doesn't come in really." Her mother repeats the last four words, not exactly derisively—rather, if anything, her accent and her smile may be said to caress her daughter's words as she says them. She is such a silly, but such a dear little goose—that seems the implication.
"We-e-ll," says Sally, as she has said before, and we have tried to spell her. "I don't see anything in that, because, look how reasonable! Mr. Fenwick's ... Mr. Fenwick's ... why, of course, entirely different. I say, mother dearest...."
"What, kitten?"
"What were you and Mr. Fenwick talking about so seriously in the back drawing-room?" The two are upstairs in the front bedroom at this minute, by-the-bye.