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Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay and Lady Beaulyon fell so neatly into the web which Maryllia carefully prepared for them, that she soon found out what a watch they kept upon her, and knew, without further trouble, that she must from henceforth regard them as spies in her aunt and Lord Roxmouth's service.
"Well, I don't think Roxmouth will have a chance to go 'oh moon'-ing with our hostess," said Charlemont "The whole idea of her marriage with him has been faked up by Mrs. Fred. The girl herself, Miss Vancourt, doesn't want him, and won't have him." "Will you take a bet on it?" asked Mr. Bludlip Courtenay.
I have noticed several wrinkles round your eyes you should massage with some 'creme ivoire' and tap those lines you really should tap on to them so " and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay illustrated her instructions delicately on her own pink- and-white dolly face with her finger-tips "I spend quite an hour every day tapping every line away round my eyes but you've really got more than I have "
Bludlip Courtenay discovered him to be a 'game old boy' while Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby found something congenial in the society of Miss Tabitha Pippitt, who, cherishing as she did, an antique-virgin passion for the Reverend John Walden, whom her father detested, had come to regard herself as a sort of silent martyr to the rough usages of this world, and was therefore not unwilling to listen to the long stories of life's disillusions which Lady Wicketts unravelled for her benefit, and which Miss Fosby, with occasional references to the photographs and prints of the 'Madonna' or the 'Girl with Lilies' tearfully confirmed.
"It's all so lonely!" she murmured "I felt just a little dull before Eva Beaulyon and the others came, but it's ever so much duller with them than without them!" That afternoon, in compliance with a particularly pressing request from Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, she accompanied a party of her guests to Badsworth, driving thither in Lord Charlemont's motor.
"Oh, I don't know anything about that!" she said "I never met a paragraphist in my life that I know of. But Eva is beautiful there is no denying it. And Margaret Bludlip Courtenay is called the youngest woman in the world!" "She looks it!" answered Walden, with great heartiness. "I cannot imagine Time making any sort of mark upon her.
Everyone in the congregation stared and seemed stricken with sudden wonderment. Such singing they had never heard before. Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay put up her lorgnon. "It's Maryllia Vancourt's creature," she whispered "The ugly child she picked up in Paris. I suppose it really IS a voice?"
Bludlip Courtenay was watching her with ill-concealed amusement, and how all the rest of the party were expectant of a 'sensation. She saw it all in a moment, she recognised that a trap had been laid for her to fall into unwarily, and realising the position she rose to it at once.
Grateful and beautiful indeed was this mysteriously softened light to the ladies round the table, and for a brief space they almost LOVED Maryllia. For HER face was flushed, and quite uncooled by powder 'like a dairymaid's she will get so coarse if she lives in the country always! Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay confided softly to Lord Charlemont, who vaguely murmured 'Ah! Yes!
So the motor-cars continually flashed between Abbot's Manor and Badsworth Hall, and Lady Beaulyon apparently found so much to amuse her that she stayed on longer than she had at first intended. So did Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay. They had their reasons for prolonging their visit, reasons more cogent than love of fresh air, or admiration of pastoral scenery.
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