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Updated: May 27, 2025
After this experience of the "surprises" of which Gran'ma was capable when she had a chance to take Paul shopping Ralph did not again venture to leave his son, and their subsequent Saturdays were passed together in the sultry gloom of the Malibran. Conversation with the Spraggs was almost impossible. Ralph could talk with his father-in-law in his office, but in the hotel parlour Mr.
Miss Spraggs asked presently; she had found the peas to be as succulent as she had wished. "To earn my own living," replied Mavis, who had seen that it was she to whom the agreeable rattle had spoken. "But, surely, that doesn't satisfy the young women of today!" continued Miss Spraggs. "I fear it does me; but then I don't know any young women to be influenced by," answered Mavis.
"She's not so bad as all that," declared Devitt. "I can't understand why men stand up for loose women," said his wife. "She's not a loose woman: far from it. If she were, Windebank would not be so interested in her." Devitt could not have said anything more calculated to anger the two women. Miss Spraggs threw down her pen, whilst Mrs Devitt became white.
"One week saw him reduced from money to nixes." Mrs Devitt raised her eyebrows. "I mean nothin'," corrected Devitt. "How very distressing!" remarked Victoria in her exquisitely modulated voice. "We should try and do something for her." "We will," said her father. "We certainly owe a duty to those who were once our neighbours," assented Miss Spraggs.
She was surprised that Lowther and her husband were so assiduous in their attentions to Mavis; indeed, as Mrs Devitt afterwards remarked to Miss Spraggs: "They hardly ever took their eyes off her face."
Husband, wife, and Miss Spraggs looked grey and old in the light of the table lamps. By this time Lowther had been told of the trouble which had descended so suddenly upon the family. His comment on hearing of it was characteristic. "Good God! But she hasn't a penny!" he said.
"Just what I said would come o' such a job," he muttered, without thought of Lancelot; "to let in a traitor, and spake him fair, and make much of him. I wish you had knocked his two eyes out, Master Lance, instead of only blacking of 'un. And a fortnight lost through that pisonin' Spraggs! And the weather going on, snow and thaw, snow and thaw.
"I'd a letter from Charlie Perigal this mornin'." "Where from?" "The same Earl's Court private hotel. He wants somethin' to do." "Something to do!" cried the two sisters together. "His father hasn't done for him what he led me to believe he would," explained Devitt gloomily. "You can find him something?" suggested Miss Spraggs.
Mrs Devitt and Miss Spraggs were silent when they learned of Mavis's good fortune; they were torn between enhanced respect for Harold's wife and concern for Victoria, who had married a penniless man. Mavis could not gauge the effect of the news on Victoria, as she had gone back to London after Major Perigal's funeral, her husband remaining at Melkbridge for the reading of the will.
As for the women, she was soon conscious of the social gulf that, in reality, lay between her and them; she was, also, aware that they were inclined to patronise her, particularly Mrs Devitt and Miss Spraggs: the high hopes with which she had commenced the day had already suffered diminution. "And what are your aims in life?"
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