"I will say this—a husband left in the lurch is always much more obliging at helping to set things straight than is a woman. Think of the Betterton-Nyns! They've been waiting for ten years. So has Captain Leigh."
"I wonder why people who love one another don't bolt oftener," said Carleigh in a low voice to Nina, dragging a chair near as the duchess turned away and perching himself on its arm. "Conventionality is a very ghastly thing, with which I have less patience every hour."
"If they both want to, they generally do," she replied without smiling. "But they must both want to."
"Well, then, why don't the Betterton-Byns, or whatever's the name—I never heard of them before—do it, then?"
"Why, they have done it. They've been off for years. In Alaska or somewhere. Betterton-Nyn, not Byn, is the name they took. It's Claudius Synge and Elsie Fairweather, don't you know."
"No, I didn't know," said Carleigh, much shocked. "And who is Captain Leigh?"
"Leigh Fairweather, of course."
"Oh, of course."
After this came the dinner, and then coffee in the rose-pink picture-room, the royal blue picture-room being closed for the week to all but decorators.
Nina had slipped away, and the other women were having a thoroughly enjoyable time talking about her.