I
was talking about our architect.
He made a bad start, so far as Robina was concerned, by coming in at
the back-door. Robina, in a big apron, was washing up. He
apologised for having blundered into the kitchen, and offered to go
out again and work round to the front. Robina replied, with
unnecessary severity as I thought, that an architect, if anyone,
might have known the difference between the right side of a house and
the wrong; but presumed that youth and inexperience could always be
pleaded as excuse for stupidity. I cannot myself see why Robina
should have been so much annoyed. Labour, as Robina had been
explaining to Veronica only a few hours before, exalts a woman. In
olden days, ladies--the highest in the land--were proud, not ashamed,
of their ability to perform domestic duties. This, later on, I
pointed out to Robina. Her answer was that in olden days you didn't
have chits of boys going about, calling themselves architects, and
opening back-doors without knocking; or if they did knock, knocking
so that nobody on earth could hear them.
Robina wiped her hands on the towel behind the door, and brought him
into the front-room, where she announced him, coldly, as "The young
man from the architect's office." He explained--but quite modestly--
that he was not exactly Messrs. Spreight's young man, but an
architect himself, a junior member of the firm. To make it clear he
produced his card, which was that of Mr.
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