The good respectable face told nothing but it seemed to be trying to keep itself from looking too serious; and once Robin had thought that it looked as if Dowie might suddenly have broken down if she would have allowed herself but she would not allow herself.
The truth was that the two or three days at Eaton Square had been very hard for Dowie to manage perfectly.

To play her accepted part before her fellow servants required much steady strength.

They were all fond of "poor little Miss Lawless" and had the tendency of their class to discuss and dwell upon symptoms with sympathetic harrowingness of detail.

It seemed that all of them had had some friend or relative who had "gone off in a quick decline.

It's strange how many young people do!" A head housemaid actually brought her heart into her throat one afternoon by saying at the servants' hall tea: "If she was one of the war brides, I should say she was just like my cousin Lucy--poor girl.