‘Sydney!’ exclaimed Mrs Kerr in a low voice, paused a moment and put down her fork. ‘Don’t be so – so ugly! It’s like – I don’t know what it’s like; it’s not like you. I wish you hadn’t made these common friends; I wish there’d been more girls of your own sort. When the very essence of you is delicacy and fineness and, well, breeding, this horrible veneer that you’ve affected lately seems so … well, it may be what you’d call “in a grim kind of way funny”, but——’

‘This seems in a grim kind of way funny,’ said Sydney. ‘It’s like being given tea by an Aunt at the Zoo.’

‘I only wish you had been taken more to the Zoo! It seems from the way you sometimes talk that your friends must be common in the worst kind of way … exotic! You’ve distressed even Ronald, though he is as a rule neither observant nor critical; he said you were so unnatural, and though at the time I was angry with him, I must say that when you talk in that tone I should find you difficult to defend to anybody.’

‘I’m sorry Ronald can’t like me.’

‘Oh, I think that’s putting it too strongly,’ Mrs Kerr said gently. ‘Perhaps I have put everything too strongly – Sydney darling, don’t sit there in that queer stiff way as though you had swallowed something: people will notice … You know how reprehensible I am, how I do like my friends to be pleasant. I would never have said anything if you hadn’t shown your teeth at me; I wouldn’t for worlds have spoilt our morning. But we won’t let it, will we? … Look, eat one of those little flaky things you’ve brought, they look delicious.’