She looked her mother up and down. “Calm yourself,” she said superbly.
Mrs. Raddick was desperate, just desperate. She was “wild” to go back with Mrs. MacEwen, but at the same time . . .
I seized my courage. “Would you—do you care to come to tea with—us?”
“Yes, yes, she’ll be delighted. That’s just what I wanted, isn’t it, darling? Mrs. MacEwen . . . I’ll be back here in an hour . . . or less . . . I’ll”
Mrs. R. dashed up the steps. I saw her bag was open again.
So we three were left. But really it wasn’t my fault. Hennie looked crushed to the earth, too. When the car was there she wrapped her dark coat round her—to escape contamination. Even her little feet looked as though they scorned to carry her down the steps to us.
“I am so awfully sorry,” I murmured as the car started.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” said she. “I don’t want to look twenty-one. Who would—if they were seventeen! It’s”—and she gave a faint shudder—“the stupidity I loathe, and being stared at by fat old men. Beasts!”
Hennie gave her a quick look and then peered out of the window.
We drew up before an immense palace of pink-and-white marble with orange-trees
