"Ah, that was quite right of them; I told them to say that.--You can go, Phillips"--to the maid--"I'll ring when I want you.--I don't suppose there's any harm in sending mendacious messages by the servants; do you? It would be far more demoralising to them if one were to tell the truth and say one was lazy, and that kind of thing, because it would provoke their contempt instead of their pity, and fill them with horrible revolutionary ideas that there was no reason why they shouldn't be lazy as well as we, and all sorts of dreadful things." "If I had thought it was mere laziness that kept you to your room this morning, Caroline, I think my dislike 'of taking trouble in a general way' would have influenced me in this particular instance, and saved you the bore of my interrupting you." "That's where you're so ungenerous, Margaret. Not the smallest bore in the world; the stupidity of this book, and Phillips's action with the hair-brush combined, were sending me off to sleep, and you interfered at an opportune moment to rescue me. How is West this morning?" "Very much as he was last night. Intent on distinguishing himself on this--what do you call it?--irrigation scheme." "Oh dear, still harping on those channels and pipes, and all the rest of it! Poor Mr. Joyce! there is plenty of work in store for him, poor fellow." "Dreadful, will it not be, for that charming young man to be compelled to work to earn his wages?" said Lady Hetherington with a sneer. Lady Caroline looked up, half astonished, half defiant. "Salary, not wages, Margaret," she said, after a moment's pause. "Salary, then," said her ladyship shortly; "it's all the same thing." "No, dear, it isn't. Salary isn't wages; just as the pin-money which West allows you isn't hire. You see the difference, dear?" "I see that you're making a perfect fool of yourself with regard to this man!" exclaimed Lady Hetherington, thoroughly roused. "What man?" asked Lady Caroline in all apparent simplicity. "What man? Why, this Mr. Joyce! And I think, Caroline, that if you choose to forget your own position, you ought to think of us, and have some little regard for decency; at all events, so long as you're staying in our house!" "All right, dear," said Lady Caroline with perfect coolness. "I'm sorry that my conduct gives you offence, but the remedy is easy. I'll tell West how you feel about it at luncheon, and I'll leave your house before dinner!"