They rang the Warlock bell and were admitted.Maggie did not know what it was that she had expected, but it was certainly not the pink, warm room of Mrs.Warlock.
The heavy softly closing door hemmed them in, the silent carpet folded about their steps; the canary twittered, the fire spurted and crackled.But at once the girl's heart went out to old Mrs.Warlock;she looked so charming in her white cap and blue bow, her eyes were raised so gently to Maggie's face and her little hand was so soft and warm.
The meeting between Anne Cardinal and Mrs.Warlock was very gracious.Aunt Anne gravely pressed the old lady's hand, looked at her with her grave distant eyes, then very carefully and delicately sat down.
Amy Warlock came in; Maggie had met her before and disliked her.
Conversation dealt decently and carefully with the weather, the canary and Maggie's discovery of London.Maggie was compelled to confess that she was afraid that she had not discovered London at all.She felt Amy Warlock's sharp eyes upon them all and, as always when she was in company that was, she thought, suspicious of her, she became hot and uncomfortable, she frowned and spoke in short, almost hostile, sentences.
"They're laughing at my new clothes," she thought, "I wish I'd worn my old ones...and anyway these hurt me." She sat up very stiffly, her hands on her lap, her eyes staring at the little bright water-colour on the wall opposite.Mrs.Warlock, like a trickling, dancing brook, continued her talk:
"Of course there's the country.I was brought up as a girl just outside Salisbury...So many, many years ago--I always tell my boy that I'm such an old woman now that I don't belong to his world at all.Just to sit here and see the younger generation go past.