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Rosemary stirred uneasily in her sleep and woke. In her game that night she had played the arrogant mistress and turned Alice out of bed. ‘Get out! You stink’, and laughed coarsely. The faint light of dawn showed her Alice lying on the floor. ‘What are you doing there? Alice! Come here this instant. At once! Do you hear?’ Alice, ever wakeful, rose up and came over. ‘Yes, Miss’, she said deferentially. ‘I can't sleep properly.’ ‘Nor can you on the floor. You may get into my bed. No, not there’, she said petulantly, ‘how many times have I told you not to put your head on my pillows?’
It was morning again; Alice was busy arranging things to please her mistress. ‘Rosemary, why am I so happy? I adore you. I never want to be anything but your devoted slave.’ ‘Didn't you ever feel that with Roland?’ – Rosemary was brushing her hair – ‘Here! I'm sick of this. Didn't they ever teach you to have a lady's maid at your Paris outfit you were telling me about? Good job! You can be my maid now. Dress my hair – properly, like ladies have it.’ Alice took over. ‘I sometimes wonder why I didn't learn to be a maid. Is it because I didn't know my proper station in life?’ Rosemary, now serious, pondered the question. ‘No’, she said, ‘it was because Roland was a bastard. And you were busy learning to be a bastard like all the other bastards at your school.’ Alice was shocked. ‘Your language!’ ‘There you go – you were taught that that was bad language. Now, when I talk real language, you can't understand it. Listen: she that hath ears let her hear! … Now you'll say I'm profane won't you? Just what you bastards taught us children – but we were too tough and resistant to swallow all that bunk at Gold Hawk Square. We were not bastards; we were born of genuine, “ill-bred”, bred ill poor, the sort that use bad language because we know that bad language is the right one to
use in a bad world. We knew that fucking was a nuisance. We knew, and our parents before us knew, that it was to be got ove