"No," said Rose.
"Oh, well--to-morrow then," said Lotty.
Rose wanted to say No again to this. Lotty would have in her
place, and would, besides, have expounded all her reasons. But she
could not turn herself inside out like that and invite any and
everybody to come and look. How was it that Lotty, who saw so many
things, didn't see stuck on her heart, and seeing keep quiet about it,
the sore place that was Frederick?
"Who is your husband?" asked Mrs. Fisher, carefully adjusting
another nut between the crackers.
"Who should he be," said Rose quickly, roused at once by Mrs.
Fisher to irritation, "except Mr. Arbuthnot?"
"I mean, of course, what is Mr. Arbuthnot?"
And Rose, gone painfully red at this, said after a tiny pause,
"My husband."
Naturally, Mrs. Fisher was incensed. She couldn't have believed
it of this one, with her decent hair and gentle voice, that she too
should be impertinent.
Chapter 14
That first week the wistaria began to fade, and the flowers of
the Judas-tree and peach-trees fell off and carpeted the ground with
rose-colour. Then all the freesias disappeared, and the irises grew
scarce. And then, while these were clearing themselves away, the
double banksia roses came out, and the big summer roses suddenly
flaunted gorgeously on the walls and trellises.
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