"She doesn't tire of you, Pauline," said Rose fondly.
Pauline frowned a little. She did not care to be reminded, even by foolish, flattering little Rose, that she was, in sober fact, nothing more nor less than Clare's paid companion.
"Oh, we get on," she said coolly. "We each leave the other to go her own way in peace. And it suits Lady Desborough in Rome to say that Clare is living with her old governess. People think of me as a spectacled lady of an uncertain age, and everybody is satisfied. But you would like some tea. I wish Clare was in. She isn't afraid of that gas stove. I am ashamed to confess that I am. Come out with me while I light it, Rosamunda mia. And you shall make the tea. I never can remember how many spoonfuls to put in. How pretty you look in blue! I wish I was eighteen, with hair the colour of ripe wheat, then I would wear blue too."
She went off, laughing, with Rose to the tiny kitchen on the other side of the passage. The sitting-room was the largest room in the little Chelsea flat, and that was smaller than any of the rooms at Woodcote; but the diminutive dimensions of the place only added to the fascinations of it in Rose's eyes.
As she took the cups and saucers down from the toy-like dresser and put them on the lilliputian table between the gas stove and the door, she felt a thrill of ineffable pleasure.
"Oh, Pauline, I wish I lived here with you. It's so dull at Woodcote. And it seems to get duller every day."
"Poor little Rose, it must be dull for you. Clare and I often talk of you with pity. Clare pities you the most. A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind, you know. She will have to go back to Desborough Park when her mother returns, I suppose. The flat is only rented for six months. I wish"--She stopped to take off the lid of the tea-kettle and peer earnestly in. "When a kettle boils, little bubbles come to the top, don't they? I have got a notebook where I write down interesting little details of that sort. They will come useful by and by, if I have to live in a flat by myself. I shouldn't be able to keep a regular servant."
"But a regular servant would spoil it all, even if you could afford it," said Rose, with sparkling eyes. "We couldn't come out here and get tea like this, if you had a servant, Pauline.".