“They might do worse,” replied Myra.
The girl laughed. “So you disapprove, too, do you? Well, you’ll have to get over it.”
“I’ve got over many things—one more or less don’t matter. And if I were you, Miss, I wouldn’t stand in this draughty hall.”
“All that I’m thinking of,” said Olivia, in high good humour, “is that, with you as duenna, I shall look too respectable. No one will believe it possible for any one except an adventuress.”
“That’s what I gather you’re going to be,” said Myra. If she had put any sting into her words it would have been a retort. But no one knew what emotions guided Myra’s speech. With the same tonelessness she would have proclaimed the house to be on fire, or dinner to be ready, or the day to be fine.
“Well, if you don’t like the prospect, Myra, you needn’t come,” said Olivia. “I’ll easily find something fluffy in short skirts and silk stockings to do for me.”
“We’re wasting gas, Miss,” said Myra, pulling the little chain of the bye-pass and thereby plunging the hall in darkness.
“Oh, bother you!” cried Olivia, stumbling into the passage and knocking against the parrot’s cage outside the dining-room door, and Polly shrieked out:
“Drat the child! Drat the child!”
Before entering the dining-room she aimed a Parthian shot at Myra.