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Updated: June 15, 2025
She knew what people were saying of her in London. Although she was in deep mourning and could not go about, several women had been to see her. They had come to condole with her, and had managed to let her understand what people were murmuring. Lady Archie had been with her. Mrs. Birchington had looked in. And two days after Lady Sellingworth's visit to Coombe Dindie Ackroyde had called.
His face softened, his manner grew almost boyishly eager, as he poured confidences into Lady Sellingworth's ears. She was his one real friend! She was a woman of the world. She had lived ever so much longer than he had and knew five times as much. What would she advise? Might he bring little Bertha to see her?
"You mean that we Americans are more determined not to cease than you English?" she asked. "That we are very persistent?" "Don't you think so?" "Perhaps we are." She turned and laid a hand gently, almost caressingly, on Lady Sellingworth's. "I shall persist until I get you over to Paris," she said. "I do want you to see my apartment, and my bronzes particularly my bronzes.
He told me he was introduced to you at Adela Sellingworth's." "Oh yes, he was," said Miss Van Tuyn. And she said no more. "He was very enthusiastic about you," ventured Braybrooke, wondering how to interpret her silence. "Really!" "Yes. We belong to the same club, the St. James's. He entertained me for more than an hour with your praises."
But that night Lady Sellingworth almost hated her. The Hags' Hop! That terrible name stuck in Lady Sellingworth's mind and seemed to fasten there like a wound in a body. As Rocheouart's partner had foretold, the name went all over London. The duchess's mot even got into a picture paper, and everyone laughed about it. The duchess was delighted. Nobody seemed to mind.
Perhaps her motive was the very ordinary one, an attempt to rouse the swift jealousy of the male animal. She was certainly "up" to all the usual feminine tricks. He thoroughly realized her vanity and, contrasting it with Lady Sellingworth's apparently almost careless lack of self-consciousness, he wondered whether Lady Sellingworth could ever have been what she was said to have been.
He hoped he was not a traitor as he carefully arranged his rather large tie. But anything was better than a tragedy. And with women of Adela Sellingworth's reputed temperament one never knew quite what might happen.
People spoke of Lady Sellingworth's "good days"; and said of her, "Isn't she astonishing?" The word "zenith" was occasionally used in reference to her. A verb which began to be mixed up with her a good deal was the verb "to last." It was said of her that she "lasted" wonderfully. Women put the question, "Isn't it miraculous how Adela Sellingworth lasts?"
He stood where he was and said again: "You damned ruffian! If you don't get out of the country I'll set the police on you." "Indeed! What for, please?" "For stealing Lady Sellingworth's jewels in Paris ten years ago!" Arabian bared his teeth like an animal and half shut his eyes. There was a strange look about his temples, as if under the deep brown of his skin something had gone suddenly white.
He was certain that the "old guard" were already beginning to talk of Addie Sellingworth's "new man." He had seen awareness, that strange feminine interest which is more than half hostile, in the eyes of both Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Ackroyde. Was it impossible, then, in this horrible whispering gallery of London, to have any privacy of the soul?
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