"Old?" snapped Mrs. Parker, who was only forty-five herself. "I was not thinking of his age, but that we should have to get a curate, and I don't know who's going to pay for him. All that I do hope is that, after all this, Delia will learn a little common politeness. I have rarely met a more disagreeable young woman than she is now."
"Well, I can't see why we should have to pay for a curate in order that the vicar's daughter might learn to be a lady," said Mrs. Marshall Gurney, quite tartly for her. Usually her consciousness of her own superiority helped her to regard with tolerance the failures of other people. But Delia Vaughan, as the one person in Marshington who refused to recognize that superiority, had committed the unpardonable sin. She had done more than that. Mrs. Marshall Gurney looked across the courts to where Phyllis, charming in her blue dress, was playing languidly in a ladies' double while Delia flaunted her intimacy with Godfrey Neale. Her heavy face hardened. "I can't think where she gets it from. Her mother was a delightful woman, one of the Meadows of Keswick, you know, and the dear vicar, even if he is a little unpractical, is a scholar and a gentleman. I hear that his last book has been a great success."
Mr. Vaughan wrote books. That was magic in itself for Muriel. A Critical Survey of the Relation between Scutage and the Subsidy, his latest triumph, did not sound frightfully thrilling, but it was a manifestation of profound scholarship which left Marshington mystified but complacent. Marshington liked to feel that its vicar's academic distinction was in some way a tribute to its own intelligence.
"Jolly good shot!" cried Connie, as a cannon-ball service from Godfrey Neale ricochetted along the grass and struck the step of the Pavilion with a resounding thump. "Muriel, isn't his service wonderful?"
"Splendid," murmured Muriel absently, straining to catch further scraps of gossip from the group behind her. She settled down again just in time to hear Mrs. Parker remark acidly:
"Delia Vaughan is one of those girls who pride themselves that, however objectionable they may be to your face, they are even more offensive behind your back. She may call it being outspoken. I call it sheer ill-breeding."
The set was over. Bobby Mason collected the balls, and Daisy Parker fluttered round him apologetically. "I'm so sorry that I played so badly."
It always seemed curious to Muriel that Mrs. Parker should have such a fluffy daughter. She supposed that Daisy must have inherited her femininity from her father. Mrs. Parker, with her caustic tongue and masculine garments, looked more like the mother of Delia Vaughan. Muriel shivered with delightful apprehension as the victors strolled towards the steps. Life could never be dull while it contained beings so romantically distinguished as Delia and Godfrey Neale.
She heard Godfrey say, with his charming little stammer, "Thanks awfully, p—partner. That was a splendid game."
Marshington gloried in Godfrey's stammer. In him it appeared as a gracious concession to human weakness, a sign that in spite of Winchester, Oxford, and the Weare Grange, Godfrey was a man of like infirmities to other men.