"It was really her mother," said Charlotte Gray, who hadn't read British Society and was not in the duchess's confidence. "It was all her mother. It's a very shocking story. It's Borgian. It's Medicean. It's not a bit our present Georgian. Not in the least."
She was looking at Kneedrock, but she was talking for her own amusement, since every one knew all this, and she must have been aware of it.
"It's better not to talk of it," cautioned Lady Bellingdown, by way of gentle rebuke. "Donty feels that it will be wisest not to speak of it while the poor boy is in the house."
Whereupon Lord Waltheof, from his customary place behind her chair, voicing his somewhat superior knowledge of affairs at Bellingdown, said: "He's going early Monday. It won't be a very long strain."
"Going early Monday, is he?" queried the duke, nibbling faster than ever. "That won't help much. We're all going early Monday, too."
The door at the far end of the hall opened just then to admit Sir George Grey—a handsome, slight boyish fellow, with curling chestnut hair.
"Oh, it's Shucks!" cried Charlotte, setting down her teacup and running forward to meet her husband, of whom, being still a bride, she was extremely fond.
"Those were the carriage wheels," discerned the duke, cutting into another seed-cake while his hostess was over behind the palms for a word with the newcomer. "They were Grey's wheels, Doody," he elucidated to the duchess, who was back toward him at the moment. "They were Grey's wheels."
"I hear," said the duchess.
The footman was bringing fresh tea.