Mrs. Toby's deference towards life was so great that she never presumed to make an unqualified statement. She would never go shopping, or visit Ursula: but only "just slipped round the corner to buy a few things" and "slipped along to the nursing house." "Life must be a very slippery affair for her," thought Mary, with uncharacteristic spitefulness. Usually she was rather sorry for Mrs. Toby. To-day, seeing her permitted as an experienced mother to hold Thomas for the unprecedented period of five minutes, she felt inclined to be spiteful. Lately, she had noticed several occasions on which she felt inclined to be spiteful.
"There, there! Hush then, little man!" murmured Mrs. Toby.
Ursula, bowing before a fourfold experience, offered no reproof.
"How's Toby?" she asked instead.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know. I really get a little worried sometimes, my dear. I do indeed. He works so hard, poor dear." Mrs. Toby shook her head, and her dangling veil became entangled with Thomas's safety-pins.
"Is he really busy?" asked Mary with relief. "Then his practice is going well? I suppose he has a lot to do just now when so much property is being sold."
The solicitor's wife pushed back her veil. "Well, it's not exactly the practice. For I'm sure, I don't really know. Poor Toby is so busy with other things. He doesn't seem to get much time. All this last month he has been getting a paper ready for the East Yorkshire Archæological Society. It takes such a lot of time. It's about the churches of the wold villages or something, and I'm sure he has to go out nearly every day to look at something or other."
Ursula felt that Mary had blundered on to an unwelcome topic. Tactfully she changed the subject.
"How is your socialist friend, Mary? The one who stood up and defied Cousin Sarah in your dining-room? It must have been a glorious scene! Foster heard about it from Tom Bannister."
"Oh, he's gone," said Mary casually. "I only took him in for a night or two because he had a bad cold, and it was such horrid weather."