"I don't know," said Vaura, "whether either of you gentlemen are aware of how by a clever ruse our gay friend Mrs. Eustace Wingfield, notwithstanding her good looks, became a member of Eve's. She told my godmother and I of it soon after the occurrence."
"I have never heard of it," said Robert Douglas.
"Pray tell us," said Lionel.
"'Tis a long story," said Vaura, "in fact a three-volume one, but you shall only have a page or two. Between the President of Eve's the Hon. Miss Silverthorne and Mrs. Eustace Wingfield, there is an old feud dating from their school days."
While at school Mrs. Eustace, then May Raynor, was the very incarnation of fun and mischief, Silverthorne being extremely plain and severe in style. The Wingfield estate bordered on the school property. Eustace, prospective heir to his uncle, often ran down from London, much to the dismay of the lady principal, for he was no end of a flirt. May Raynor's pretty face attracted him from the first, but Silverthorne had a soft spot in her heart for him. Jealous of May she reported her to the principal; for revenge Wingfield cast languishing glances at Silverthorne in church. She never having had a lover actually informed the principal that, when he came to her to sue for her hand, she, as her guardian, was to say him yea. On May being married and out of the school-room, to her adored, she, Silverthorne, vowed revenge, if ever in her power, so that, when two seasons ago, Mr. Wingfield bet May a box, during la Bernhardt saison, against an embroidered dressing gown that she would be black-balled at Eve's, on Mrs. Clayton proposing her, the president, looking black, declared, on its being put to the vote on the following afternoon, she should have her two black balls, Mrs. Clayton informed May. "Now, what shall, be my card," exclaimed May, "for my bet shall be won. I have it," and staining her face yellow with green glasses and unbecoming attire, she attended a woman's right meeting at which her enemy was chairman. Seated immediately in front of the platform, Miss Silverthorne gloated over her changed looks. She was made a member. Her enemy saying to Mrs. Clayton, "How hideous she has become; how he will hate her!"
"What a green-eyed monster is jealousy," said Reverend Robert.
"But our gay friend won her bet and a stare at the Bernhardt, in spite of everything," laughed Trevalyon.
"But I fancy gay Mrs. Wingfield would not often be found at 'Eves;' such an army of plain women would be too many for her," said reverend Douglas.
"Oh! no," said Vaura, taking his arm back to the sunlit morning-room, "she only goes occasionally to throw a white ball for a pretty woman."
"I have sometimes come across her with Wingfield at the 'Abermarle'; she likes a little bass mixed with the treble of her life," said Trevalyon.