"Yes. They've hurried it, because the girl's mother, who is the most restless of mortals, wants to go to China or somewhere. She's just back now from Egypt. Her daughter was with friends at Capri for the winter. That's where Caryll met her. They are Americans, you know."
"So I heard. I do hope Caryll will be happy; but it is a risk. Americans are always divorcing. They're so lacking in repose."
"He tells me she's adorable."
"Oh, of course. Still he might, don't you think, have done better at home? English girls fit in so much better."
"I dare say. But one never could advise Caryll. He's most exasperatingly headstrong." The young baronet was her nephew and she knew.
"I've met Mrs. Veynol and her filly," Waltheof put in. It was after dinner, and he had been sipping liqueurs and smoking cigarettes alone in the dining-hall. "She's exasperatingly headstrong, too. Not my choice for a mother-in-law."
Lady Bellingdown twisted her long neck to give him a smile. He was behind her chair as usual. "Caryll never met Mrs. Veynol until a week ago. It was all arranged by correspondence," she said.
"Who was Veynol?" asked Charlotte Grey. "It seems to me I've heard the name, but—"
"South African diamond man. She married him after a week's acquaintance at Cape Town, and he died in five months and left her a Mrs. Cr[oe]sus," Waltheof made clear. "The girl calls herself Veynol, too, but that isn't her name, of course."
"Americans hold their names so lightly, don't they?" observed Charlotte. "George says they change them at the drop of the hat."