really _some_ people had _no_ tact ...

could _not_ see they were _de trop_.

Why didn't Mr.Williams marry some nice girl and make a home for himself?
Not well enough off?
Rubbish! She had known plenty young couples marry and live very happily on Two hundred and fifty a year, and Mr.Williams must surely be earning that?
And if he must always be dining out and spending the evening with other people, why did he not make himself more 'general ?' Not _always_ be absorbed in her husband.

Of course she understood that while Arbella's fate hung in the balance they had to study the case together and have long confabulations over poisons in the Lab'rat'ry...!" (This last detestable word was a great worry to Mrs.Rossiter.Sometimes she succeeded in suppressing as many vowels as possible; at others she felt impelled to give them fuller values and call it "laboratorry.") And so on, for an hour or so till dinner was announced.
David sat silent all through this meal, under Mrs.Rossiter's mixture of mirthless badinage: "We shall have you now proposing to Lady Shillito after saving her life! I expect her husband won't have altered his will as she didn't poison him, and she must have had quite thirty thousand pounds settled on her....

They do say however she's a great _flirt_..." Indiscreet questions: "How much will you make out of this case?
You don't know?
I thought barristers had all that marked on their briefs?
And didn't she give you 'refreshers,' as they call them, from time to time?
What was it like seeing her in prison?
Was she handcuffed?
Or chained?
What did she wear when she was tried ?" And inconsequent remarks: "I remember my mamma--she died when I was only fourteen--used to dream she was being tried for murder.