[Later, maybe, she will have the presence of mind to be sincerely grateful to whatever gods or prophets live that Val has so staunchly refused to recall that she is not a mademoiselle. (And then, immediately afterword, it will occur to her that it hardly would have mattered even if he had for no version of the Orlesian address will have meant anything to Mrs. Gilbert one way or another.)
But those are all mental hoops for jumping through at some later hour when she is not standing in the dim little foyer under the judgemental roving eye of the house's keeper. Mrs. Gilbert has one of those drawn shears blade-like faces for which it would be almost impossible for the emotion 'aghast' to cross, but from somewhere in the glint of that hack steel emerges a glimmer of knowing affront.
Hangers-on with entwined fates. Sure.]
I told the Maejyr this was no place for a respectable young girl. Two, [the old woman scoffs, unclipping a heavy key from her pocket chain with a rasp of its fine little metal links.] What will you mother say, Miss Poppell?
[Wysteria all but slaps the key out of the old woman's claw and into her hand.]
no subject
But those are all mental hoops for jumping through at some later hour when she is not standing in the dim little foyer under the judgemental roving eye of the house's keeper. Mrs. Gilbert has one of those drawn shears blade-like faces for which it would be almost impossible for the emotion 'aghast' to cross, but from somewhere in the glint of that hack steel emerges a glimmer of knowing affront.
Hangers-on with entwined fates. Sure.]
I told the Maejyr this was no place for a respectable young girl. Two, [the old woman scoffs, unclipping a heavy key from her pocket chain with a rasp of its fine little metal links.] What will you mother say, Miss Poppell?
[Wysteria all but slaps the key out of the old woman's claw and into her hand.]
YesthankyouverygoodIwillhaveitbacktoyoudirectly.Thiswayifyouplease,gentleman.
[They are going up the stairs.]