They rang the Warlock bell and were admitted.Maggie did not know what it was that she had expected, but it was certainly not the pink, warm room of Mrs.Warlock.
The heavy softly closing door hemmed them in, the silent carpet folded about their steps; the canary twittered, the fire spurted and crackled.But at once the girl's heart went out to old Mrs.Warlock;she looked so charming in her white cap and blue bow, her eyes were raised so gently to Maggie's face and her little hand was so soft and warm.
The meeting between Anne Cardinal and Mrs.Warlock was very gracious.Aunt Anne gravely pressed the old lady's hand, looked at her with her grave distant eyes, then very carefully and delicately sat down.
Amy Warlock came in; Maggie had met her before and disliked her.
Conversation dealt decently and carefully with the weather, the canary and Maggie's discovery of London.Maggie was compelled to confess that she was afraid that she had not discovered London at all.She felt Amy Warlock's sharp eyes upon them all and, as always when she was in company that was, she thought, suspicious of her, she became hot and uncomfortable, she frowned and spoke in short, almost hostile, sentences.
"They're laughing at my new clothes," she thought, "I wish I'd worn my old ones...and anyway these hurt me." She sat up very stiffly, her hands on her lap, her eyes staring at the little bright water-colour on the wall opposite.Mrs.Warlock, like a trickling, dancing brook, continued her talk:
"Of course there's the country.I was brought up as a girl just outside Salisbury...So many, many years ago--I always tell my boy that I'm such an old woman now that I don't belong to his world at all.Just to sit here and see the younger generation go past.
Don't regret your youth, Miss Cardinal.You'll want it back again one day.I said to Martin only yesterday..."Neither Aunt Anne nor Amy Warlock had anything to say, so that quite suddenly on the entrance of tea, conversation dropped.They all sat there and looked at one another.There was a large silver tray with silver tea-things upon it and a fat swelling china dish that held hot buttered toast.There was a standing wicker pyramid containing bread and butter, plates of little yellow and red cakes, shortbread and very heavy plum cake black with currants.
Mrs.Warlock had ceased all conversation, her eyes were fixed upon the preparations for tea.The door opened and John Warlock and his son came in.
Maggie's eyes lighted when she saw Martin Warlock.She behaved as she might have done had she been in her own room at St.Dreots.She sprang up from her chair and stood there, smiling, waiting for him.
First his father shook hands with her, then Martin came and stood beside her, laughing.
His face was flushed and he seemed excited about something, but she felt nothing save her pleasure at meeting him, and it was only when he had moved on to her aunt that she was conscious once more of Amy Warlock's eyes, and wondered whether she had behaved badly in jumping up to meet him.
As she considered this her anger and her confusion at her anger increased.She saw that Martin was talking to her aunt and did not look at her.Perhaps he also had thought her forward; of course that horrid sister of his would think everything that she did wrong.But did he? Surely he understood.She wanted to ask him and then wanted to go home and leave them all.She saw that her teacup was trembling in her hand.She steadied it upon her knee and then her knee began to quiver, and all the time Amy Warlock watched her.She thought then that she must assert herself and show that she was not confused nor timid, so she began in a high-strained voice to talk to Mrs.
Warlock.She told Mrs.Warlock that she found Harrods' a confusing place, that she had not yet visited Westminster Abbey, that her health was quite good, that she had no brothers and no sisters, that she could not play the piano, and that she was afraid that she never read books.
It was after the last of these interesting statements that she was suddenly aware of the sound of her own voice, as though it had been a brazen gong beating stridently in the vastness of a deserted Cathedral.She saw the old lady take two pieces of buttered toast from the china dish, hold them tenderly in her hand and fling them a swift, bird-like glance before she devoured them; during that moment's vision Maggie discovered what so many people of vaster experience both of life and of Mrs.Warlock had never discovered;namely, that the old lady cared more for her food than her company.