To say anything clever was, with Mrs. Bentinck-Major,
at once to be classed as "queer."
"It _is_ hot!"
Miss Ronder, thin and piky above her stiff white collar, looked
immaculately cool. "A lovely day," she said, sniffing the colour and the
warmth, and loving it.
Mrs. Bentinck-Major was thinking of the Brandon scandal, but it was one of
her habits never to let her left-hand voice know what her right-hand brain
was doing. Secretly she often wondered about sexual things--what people
_really_ did, whether they enjoyed what they did, and whether she
would have enjoyed the same things had life gone that way with her instead
of leading her to Bentinck-Major.
But she never, never spoke of such things. She was thinking now of Mrs.
Brandon and Morris. They said that some one had found a letter, a
disgraceful letter. How _extraordinary_!
"It's loneliness," suddenly said Miss Ronder, "that drives people to do
the things they do."
Mrs. Bentinck-Major started as though some one had struck her in the small
of her back. Was the woman a witch? How amazing!
"I beg your pardon," she said nervously.
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