Constance Maitland's full gaze had in it power over women as well as over men, and Mrs. Hill-Smith was not quite certain whether there was a laugh or not in Constance's deep, dark eyes, as turning them on her she replied:
"Very well—but my first proposition will be revolutionary, I warn you. I shall suggest that we pay governesses enough to enable them to save something, and thus we can get hold of the economic problem by the head instead of by the tail."
Was she really in earnest? Mrs. Hill-Smith did not know, but there was certainly a flippancy in Constance's tone which shocked both Mrs. Hill-Smith and Miss Baldwin. The serious, hard-working women by whom they were mothered and grand-*mothered had given them a deadly soberness and energy in the pursuit of social schemes and pleasures, just as their forbears had industriously and seriously washed and baked and brewed.
Mrs. Hill-Smith was so annoyed by Constance's manner of receiving her communication that if Constance had not been very intimate at the British Embassy Mrs. Hill-Smith would have made her displeasure felt. But she was constitutionally timid,
