“Well, how did Marty treat you?” said Adelaide.
Mrs. Baxter sniffed.
“We had not very much in common,” she returned.
“No; Marty’s a very real person.” There was a pause. “What became of him? Did he go?”
“Yes, your husband’s trained nurse gave him a message, and he went away.”
“Quietly?” The note of disappointment was so plain that Mrs. Baxter asked in answer:
“What would you have wanted him to do?”
Adelaide laughed.
“I suppose it would have been too much to expect that he would drag you and Miss Gregory about by your hair,” she said, “but I own I should have liked some little demonstration. But perhaps,” she added more brightly, “he has gone back to wreck the docks.”
At this moment Mathilde entered the room in her hat and furs, and distracted the conversation from Burke. Adelaide, who was fond of enunciating the belief that you could tell when people were in love by the frequency with which they wore their best clothes, noticed now how wonderfully lovely Mathilde was looking; but she noticed it quite unsuspiciously, for she was thinking, “My child is really a beauty.”