Then she's not your kind." On the whole, Helen was not displeased.

Mrs.Charnock's bold statements that she could have got Stephen if she had wanted had jarred, but it looked as if she had made an empty boast.
"I thought you were a democrat," she remarked, smiling.
"So I am, in general; but when it's a matter of choosing my wife's friends, I'm an exclusive aristocrat.

That's the worst of having theories; they don't apply all round." Helen thought his utilitarian dislike of idleness was open to this objection, but it was not the time to urge Bob's cause.

She would wait for another opportunity, when Stephen had not been delayed, and she made him a humorous curtsey.
"Sometimes you're rather bearish, and sometimes you're very nice," she said, and went into the house.
The Charnocks returned a week later and came again at regular intervals, while Helen rode over to their house now and then.

Festing refused to accompany her and sometimes grumbled, but on the whole tolerated Charnock's visits so long as they did not delay his work.