Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/52

46 'Oh, I don't care! Much good does it do me!'

Mrs. Jordan, after an instant, recovered her superiority. 'No—it doesn't lead to much.' Her own initiations so clearly did. Still—after all; and she was not jealous: 'There must be a charm.'

'In seeing them?' At this the girl suddenly let herself go. 'I hate them; there's that charm!'

Mrs. Jordan gaped again. 'The real "smarts"?'

'Is that what you call Mrs. Bubb? Yes—it comes to me; I've had Mrs. Bubb. I don't think she has been in herself, but there are things her maid has brought. Well, my dear!'—and the young person from Cocker's, recalling these things and summing them up, seemed suddenly to have much to say. But she didn't say it; she checked it; she only brought out: 'Her maid, who's horrid—she must have her!' Then she went on with indifference: 'They're too real! They're selfish brutes.'

Mrs. Jordan, turning it over, adopted at last