pricked
up her ears, actually almost, as well as figuratively.

Ten minutes elapsed. Then Mrs. Arbuthnot appeared.

"What, finished, dearest!" she exclaimed as she opened the door.
"Splendid! How quick you've been. And I am sure the time flew on--not
leaden feet, but just the opposite. It always does when one is pleasantly
occupied. Developing photographs or a rubber of Bridge, it's just the
same, the hands of the clock spin round. And I've won six shillings, and
it would have been more if it had not been for Lady Fortescue's last
declaration. Four hearts, my dearest, and the knave as her highest card.
They doubled us, and of course we went down. I had only two small ones. I
had shown her my own weakness by not supporting her declaration. Of
course at my first lead I led her a heart, and it was won by the queen on
my left. A heart was returned, and Lady Fortescue played the nine. It was
covered by the ten which won the trick. She didn't make a single trick in
her own suit. It is quite impossible to understand Lady Fortescue's
declarations. And did you put in all the prints? They will have nearly
filled the last pages. I must send for another album. Are these they?"
She crossed to the open volume.

"No," said Trix, "that's an old volume. I was looking at it. Who's the
boy in the photograph, Aunt Lilla?"

Mrs. Arbuthnot bent towards the page.

"'A. G., aged fourteen.' Let me see. Why, of course that was Antony Gray,
Richard Gray's son. But I never knew his father. He--I mean the boy--was
staying in rooms with his aunt, Mrs. Stanley. She was his father's
sister, and married George Stanley. Something to do with the stock
exchange, and quite a wealthy man, though a bad temper. And his wife was
not a happy woman, as you can guess. Temper means such endless friction
when it's bad, especially with regard to things like interfering with the
servants, and wanting to order the kitchen dinner. So absurd, as well as
annoying. There's a place for a man and a place for a woman, and the
man's place is not the kitchen, even if his entry is only figurative. By
which I mean that Mr. Stanley did not actually go to the kitchen, but
gave orders from his study, on a sort of telephone business he had had
fixed up and communicating with the kitchen. So trying for the cook's
nerves, especially when making omelettes, or anything that required
particular attention. She never knew when his voice wouldn't shout at her
from the wall. A small bl