‘You mean like an egg and spoon race,’ Miss Wannop said.
‘It isn’t,’ Mrs Duchemin replied gently, ‘the way I should have put it. Isn’t the real symbol Atalanta, running fast and not turning aside for the golden apple? That always seemed to me the real truth hidden in the beautiful old legend…’
‘I don’t know,’ Miss Wannop said, ‘when I read what Ruskin says about it in the Crown of Wild Olive. Or no! It’s the Queen of the Air. That’s his Greek rubbish, isn’t it? I always think it seems like an egg–race in which the young woman didn’t keep her eyes in the boat. But I suppose it comes to the same thing.’
Mrs Duchemin said:
‘My dear! Not a word against John Ruskin in this house!’
Miss Wannop screamed.
An immense voice had shouted:
‘This way! This way…The ladies will be here!’
Of Mr Duc
