"I—we try to, you know," repeated Mrs. Hammond, as though she were saying a lesson.
Connie, from the sofa head, turned round and looked at her mother. Muriel felt the tension in the room to be unendurable. Somehow they were torturing that gentle little lady on the sofa. The evening became abominable to her. The laughter, the rollicking songs broke round her like a nightmare sea. Her hands slid from the keyboard and she clenched them on her knee.
"Oh, come along, Muriel," called Connie. "Are you tired? Then let me come."
Muriel was pushed aside from the stool, and Connie swung herself into her place. Connie's red, work-soiled fingers rattled over the keyboard.
"What shall we have now?" Her jangling discords changed to the clashing refrain of an old song.
"I went down south to see my Sal,
Singing Polly Wolly Doodle all the day."
The party was jollier than ever.
At last they began to go. There was a scramble for coats and scarves and leather gauntlets. Then the lamps of the motor-cycles would not light. Captain Lowcroft's little car refused to start. The colonel stood on the door-step and smiled down on them benignly.
"I can't tell you how grateful we are, Mrs. Hammond. This is just the sort of thing to keep the boys out of mischief, what? Your husband has promised to come and look over our horses one day. I hope that we shall see you both up at the Mess one of these days."