Lanley, suddenly becoming embarrassed over his choice of an adjective.

Adelaide looked at him sharply.

"Dear Papa," she asked, "since when have you become an admirer of
painted shelves and dirty rugs? And I don't doubt," she added very
gently, "that for the same money they could have found something quite
tolerable in the country."

"Perhaps they don't want to live in the country," said Mr. Lanley, rather
sharply: "I'm sure there is nothing that you'd hate more, Adelaide."

She opened her dark eyes.

"But I don't have to choose between squalor here or--"

"Squalor!" said Mr. Lanley. "Don't be ridiculous!"

Mathilde broke in gently at this point:

"I think you must have liked Mrs. Wayne, Mama, to ask her to dine."

Adelaide saw an opportunity to exercise one of her important talents.

"Yes," she said. "She has a certain naïve friendliness. Of course I don't
advocate, after fifty, dressing like an Eton boy; I always think an
elderly face above a turned-down collar--"

"Mama," broke in Mathilde, quietly, "would you mind not talking of Mrs.
Wayne like that? You know, she's Pete's mother."