“Go in for as many as you like, dear Lord Lumley,” said Adrienne, smiling her assurance of being able to deal with a series.
“Good-night, Mrs. Barney,” said Mrs. Aldesey. “Leave me a little standing-room under the stars, won’t you.”
“There’s always standing-room under the stars,” said Adrienne. “We don’t exclude each other there.”
The party showed no other signs of breaking up. The Laughing Philosopher had melted, or, at all events, mastered Mr. Besley, and talked to him with, now and again, a maternal hand laid on his knee. Mr. Haviland and Mrs. Pope still laughed in the back drawing-room, Meg and Mr. Prentiss had come together again and Sir Archibald was engaged with a pretty girl. After looking around upon them all, Adrienne, with the appearance of a deeper fatigue, sank back upon her sofa.
“You know, darling,” Barney smiled candidly upon his wife, “you rather put your foot in it just now. Mrs. Aldesey’s marriage isn’t happy. I ought to have warned you.”
“How do you mean not happy, Barney?” Adrienne looked up at him. “Isn’t Mr. Aldesey dead?”
“Not at all dead. She left him some years ago, didn’t she, Roger? He lives in New York. It’s altogether a failure.”
Adrienne looked down at her fan. “I didn’t know. But one can’t avoid speaking of success sometimes, even to failures.”
“Of course not. Another time you will know.”
Adrienne seemed to meditate, but without compunction. “That was what she meant, then, by saying she believed in freedom for herself but not for other people.”