'I'm pleased to see you, my dear Willie,' she said; 'all the more because I hear Mrs Mitchell has taken Wednesdays now. Not quite a nice thing to do, I think; although, after all, I suppose we could hardly really clash. True, we do happen to know a few of the same people.' (By that Lady Everard meant she had snatched as many of Mrs Mitchell's friends away as she thought desirable.) 'But as a general rule I suppose we're not really in the same set. But perhaps you're going on there afterwards?'
That had been Mr Clicker's intention, but he denied it, with surprise and apparent pain at the suspicion.
She settled down more comfortably.
'Ah, well, Mrs Mitchell is an extremely nice, hospitable woman, and her parties are, I know, considered quite amusing, but I do think—I really do—that her husband carries his practical jokes and things a little too far. It isn't good form, it really isn't, to see a man of his age, with his face blacked, coming in after dinner with a banjo, calling himself the Musical White-eyed Kaffir, as he did the last time I was there. I find it déplacé—that's the word, déplacé. He seemed to think that we were all children at a juvenile party! I was saying so to Lord Rye only last night. Lord Rye likes it, I think, but he says Mr Mitchell's mad—that's what it is, a little mad. Last time Lord Rye was there everybody had a present given them hidden in their table napkins. There had been some mistake in the parcels, I believe, and Miss Mooney—you know, the actress, Myra Mooney—received a safety razor, and Lord Rye a vanity bag. Everybody screamed with laughter, but I must say it seemed to me rather silly. I wasn't there myself.'
'I was,' said Mr Cricker. 'I got a very pretty little feather fan. I suppose the things really had been mixed up, and after all I was very glad of the fan; I was able to give it to—' He stopped, sighed and looked down on the floor.
'And is that affair still going on, Willie dear? It seems to me such a pity. I do wish you would try and give it up.'
'I know, but she won't,' he said in a voice hoarse with anxiety.
'Dear Lady Everard, you're a woman of the world, and know everything—'
She smiled. 'Not everything, Willie; a little of music, perhaps. I know a good voice when I hear it. I have a certain flair for what's going to be a success in that direction, and of course I've been everywhere and seen everything. I've a certain natural knowledge of life, too, and keep well up to date with everything that's going on. I knew about the Hendon Divorce Case long before anyone else, though it never came off after all, but that's not the point. But then I'm so discreet; people tell me things. At any rate, I always know.'
Indeed, Lady Everard firmly believed herself to be a great authority on most subjects, but especially on contemporary gossip. This was a delusion. In reality she had that marvellous talent for not knowing things, that gift for ignorance, and genius for inaccuracy so frequently seen in that cultured section of society of which she was so popular and distinguished a member. It is a talent that rarely fails to please, particularly in a case like her own. There is always a certain satisfaction in knowing that a woman of position and wealth, who plumes herself on her early knowledge and special information, is absolutely and entirely devoid of the one and incorrect in the other. A marked ignorance in a professionally well-informed person has always something touching and appealing to those who are able, if not willing, to set that person right. It was taken for granted among her acquaintances, and probably was one of the qualities that endeared her to them most, that dear Lady Everard was generally positive and always wrong.
'Yes, I do know most things, perhaps,' she said complacently. 'And one thing I know is that this woman friend of yours is making you perfectly miserable. You're longing to shake it off. Ah, I know you! You've far more real happiness in going to the opera with me than even in seeing her, and the more she pursues you the less you like it. Am I not right?'