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Presently there came a tap at the door, and the gorgeous Briggs entered. He held himself like an automaton, and spoke as though repeating a lesson. "His lordship's compliments, and will her la'ship lunch in the dining-room to-day?" "No," said Lady Winsleigh curtly. "Luncheon for myself and Mrs. Marvelle can be sent up here." Briggs still remained immovable.
You're a great friend of Lennie's, aren't you?" Lady Winsleigh sat erect and haughty, a deadly chill of disgust and fear at her heart. This creature called her quondam lover, "Lennie" even as she herself had done, and she, the proud, vain woman of society and fashion shuddered at the idea that there should be even this similarity between herself and the "thing" called Violet Vere.
"Oh, she has left you, has she?" and Lady Clara smiled maliciously. "I thought she would! Why don't you ask your dear friend, George Lorimer, about her? He is madly in love with her, as everybody knows, she is probably the same with him!" "Clara, Clara!" exclaimed Lord Winsleigh in accents of deep reproach. "Shame on you! Shame!" Her ladyship laughed amusedly.
"I shall go to Clara Winsleigh this morning and see what she means to do in the matter. Poor Clara! She must be disgusted at the whole affair!" "She had rather a liking for Errington, hadn't she?" inquired Mr. Marvelle, folding up the Times in a neat parcel, preparatory to taking it with him in order to read it in peace on his way to the Law Courts. "Liking? Well!" And Mrs.
Thus she put away all the morbid fancies that threatened to oppress her, and became almost cheerful. And while she made her simple plans for pleasantly passing the long, dull day of her husband's enforced absence, her friend, Lady Winsleigh, was making arrangements of a very different nature. Her ladyship had received a telegram from Sir Francis Lennox that morning.
Most of her sex envied her, but Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, who was past the prime of life, and, who, moreover, gained her social successes through intelligence and tact alone, was far too sensible to grudge any woman her beauty. On the contrary, she was a frank admirer of handsome persons, and she surveyed Lady Winsleigh now through her glasses with a smile of bland approval.
Lady Winsleigh looked vexed Mrs. Marvelle bewildered. "Do you think," inquired this latter, "she can really be so wonderfully lovely?" "No, I don't!" answered Clara snappishly. "I dare say she's a plump creature with a high color men like fat women with brick-tinted complexions they think it's healthy. Helen of Troy indeed! Pooh! Lennie must be crazy."
To-night there is no place to sit down in all the grand extent of the Winsleigh drawing-rooms, puffy old dowagers occupy the sofas, ottomans, and chairs, and the largest and most brilliant portion of the assemblage are standing, grinning into each other's faces with praiseworthy and polite pertinacity, and talking as rapidly as though their lives depended on how many words they could utter within the space of two minutes.
On arriving at the Van Clupps', they found no one at home not even Marcia so Lady Winsleigh drove her "dearest Mimsey" back to her own house in Kensington, and there left her with many expressions of tender endearment then, returning home, proceeded to make an elaborate and brilliant toilette for the enchantment and edification of Sir Francis Lennox that evening.
It is always pleasant for me to know my husband's friends." Here she raises those marvellous, innocent eyes of hers and smiles; why does Lady Winsleigh shrink from that frank and childlike openness of regard? Why does she, for one brief moment, hate herself? why does she so suddenly feel herself to be vile and beneath contempt?
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