Charlotte Grey gasped. The duchess and Lady Bellingdown were dumb.
"By gad!" exclaimed Waltheof in a fervor of astonished admiration. "You're more beautiful than ever, Mrs. Darling."
"We fancied you were horribly marked," cried the duke. "We did, really. All purple blotches and that sort of thing. Didn't we, Doody?"
"Speak for yourself, Pucketts," said Doody. "I could never imagine Nina anything but lovely."
Kitty Bellingdown had turned to frown at her cavalier. She regarded his outburst as quite unnecessary and very ill-timed.
Charlotte Grey gasped a second time. Then she said: "I'd be willing to be burned to get a complexion like yours, dear."
"But, you see, I had the foundation to begin on; and I had a friend who was willing to sacrifice something for me," replied Nina sweetly. So sweetly that Charlotte Grey fairly gritted her teeth.
Lady Bellingdown grasped the situation and rushed to the rescue with a change of subject.
"Nina," she said, "did you know that Caryll had returned to his wife?"
Then it was really Mrs. Darling's turn to gasp. "Really!" she exclaimed.