"Well, one ought to be enough," returns Marcia, with asperity. "Floyd should display a little good sense, if she has none."
"He is not a jealous husband," and the accompanying smile is judiciously serene.
"Jealous? Well, there is really nothing for him to be jealous about; a man not in love seldom is jealous."
"Not in love?" Madame glances up with subtle, innocent questioning, just raising her brows with the faintest tint of incredulity.
"Oh," says Marcia, with the airy toss of her head, "it was not a love-match, although there was so much talk of Violet's heroism, and all that. And I wonder at Floyd, who could have done so much better, taking her after she had been handed round, as one might say, fairly gone begging for a husband!"
"O Mrs. Wilmarth, not so bad as that!" and madame smiles with seductive encouragement.
Marcia is dying to retail her news. If her mother were at hand; but there is no one of her very own, so madame must answer.
"Well," she says, in a low, confidential tone, "Mr. St. Vincent was extremely anxious to have her married. He actually sounded Mr. Wilmarth," and she gives a shrill little laugh of disdain, "and then he offered her to Eugene."
"I think myself it would have been an excellent match for Eugene," says madame, with motherly kindness in her tone. "That was last summer. I should have counselled him to accept if I had been a sister. It does not seem so strange to me. Marriages are always arranged in France."
Marcia is struck with amazement, nay, more, a touch of mortification. Can it be possible that the family have known this since last summer, and she alone has been shut out?