es a little effort to shake off something that draws her away, and
comes back rather perfunctorily to her daughter's sphere of interest
and the life of town.

"Did Laetitia call Mr. Bradshaw a shop-boy, chick?"

"Very nearly--at least, I don't know what you call not calling anybody
shop-boy if she didn't." Her mother makes a further effort--comes back
a little more.

"What did she say, child?"

"Said you could always tell, and it was no use my talking, and the
negro couldn't change his spots."

"She has some old-fashioned ideas. But how about calling him a
shop-boy?"

"Not in words, but worse. Tishy always goes round and round. I wish
she'd _say_! However, Dr. Vereker quite agrees with me. _We_ think it
_dishonest_!"

"What did Dr. Vereker think of Mr. Bradshaw?" We have failed to note
that the doctor was the 'cello in the quartet.

"Now, mamma darling, fancy asking Dr. Prosy what he thinks! I wasn't
going to. Besides, as if it mattered what they think of each other!...
Who? Why, men, of course!"

"Mr. Fenwick's a man, and you asked him."

"Mr. Fenwick's a man on other lines--absolutely other. He doesn't come
in really." Her mother repeats the last four words, not exactly
derisively--rather, if anything, her accent and her smile may be said
to caress her daughter's words as she says them. She is such a silly,
but such a dear little goose--that seems the implication.

"We-e-ll," says Sally, as she has said before, and we have tried to
spell her. "I don't see anything in that, because, look how reasonable!
Mr. Fenwick's ... Mr. Fenwick's ... why, of course, entirely different.
I say, mother dearest...."

"What, kitten?"

"What were you and Mr. Fenwick talking about so seriously in the back
drawing-room?" The two are upstairs in the front bedroom at this
minute, by-the-bye.

"Did you hear us, darling?"

"No, because of the row. But one could tell, for all that." Then Sally
sees in an instant that it is something her mother is not going to
tell her about, and makes immediate concession. "Where was the Major
going that he couldn't come?" she asks. "He generally makes a point
of coming when it's music."

"I fancy he's dining at the Hurkaru," says her mother. But she has
gone back into her preoccupation, and from within it externalises an
opinion that we should be better in bed, or we shall never be up in
the morning.

CHAPTER XII

WHAT FENWICK AND SALLY'S MOTHER HAD BEEN SAYING IN THE BACK DRAW