Her mother had recalled her three times already. Perhaps this time she would really get away. But before there was time for her to think that it looked as if it was going to be fine, there was Mrs Graham’s sweet high voice with its note of urgency – ‘Thea! Thea!’ She turned back. Mrs Graham, having surmounted the fatigue of dressing, now sat very comfortably in her own particular armchair with her feet on a cushion and a pale blue spread across her knees. She was a small, frail creature with fair hair, blue eyes, and a complexion upon which she lavished the utmost care. As a girl she had had a good many admirers. Not, perhaps, quite as many as she liked to believe. Their number and the extravagance of their attentions tended to increase when viewed in retrospect, but she had been ‘pretty Winifred Owen’, and when she married Robert Graham the local paper described her as the loveliest of brides. It was now a good many years since Robert had died leaving her with an income no longer so adequate as it had been, a devoted daughter – she always told everyone how devoted Althea was – and an abiding sense of injury.
