CHAPTER 11.
'And what are you going to do, Biddy?
How long are you going to stay with the Tallants ?' 'Until Rosamond gets tired of me--or I feel no further need of the moral support of the British Throne,' answered Lady Bridget lightly.
'I'm not sure whether I shall be able to stand Luke's Jingo attitude in regard to Labour and the Indigenous Population--all the Colonial problems in capitals, observe.

He does take his position so strenuously; it's no good my reminding him that even the Queen is obliged to respect a Constitutional government.' Bridget took a cigarette from a gold case with her initials in tiny precious stones across it, and handed the case to Mrs Gildea who shook her head.
'Still too old-fashioned to smoke! I should have thought you'd have been driven to it here to keep the mosquitoes at a distance....
'Do you like my case, Joan?
Willoughby Maule gave it to me,' she asked.
'You didn't return it then ?' 'Why should I have hurt his feelings?
We weren't engaged.' A meditative pause and then suddenly, 'Evelyn Mary doesn't smoke.

Nice girls don't!' 'Biddy, I shall be sorry for Evelyn Mary if the Maules are to live in London and you go back there again--which I suppose you will do.' 'You needn't suppose for certain that I shall go back.' She savoured her cigarette slowly.

'I can't go on with that old life, the sort of life one has to lead with Aunt Eliza and the Gavericks and their set.

I can't go on pushing and striving and rushing here and there in order to be seen at the right houses and join the hunt after fleeing eligibles.' She gave a bitter little laugh, and then her tone changed to that ripple of frivolity in which nevertheless Mrs Gildea discerned the under-beat of tragedy.
'Besides, even so, it's incongruous--impossible.