Mrs Milburn continued to dilate upon lawn tennis, dealt
lightly with badminton, and brought the conversation
round with a graceful sweep to canoeing. Dora's attitude
before she had done became slightly permissive, but Mrs
Milburn held on till she had accomplished her conception
of conduct for the occasion; then she remembered a meeting
in the schoolhouse.
"We are to have an address by an Indian bishop," she told
them. "He is on his way to England by China and Japan,
and is staying with our dear rector, Mr Murchison. Such
a treat I expect it will be."
"What I am dying to know," said Miss Filkin, in a sprightly
way, "is whether he is black or white!"
Mrs Milburn then left the room, and shortly afterward
Miss Filkin thought she could not miss the bishop either,
conveying the feeling that a bishop was a bishop, of
whatever colour. She stayed three minutes longer than
Mrs Milburn, but she went. The Filkin tradition, though
strong, could not hold out entirely against the unwritten
laws, the silently claimed privileges, of youth in Elgin.
It made its pretence and vanished.
Even as the door closed the two that were left looked at
one another with a new significance. A simpler relation
established itself between them and controlled all that
surrounded them; the very twilight seemed conscious with
it; the chairs and tables stood in attentive harmony.
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