"Why, that woman who's just come in!" Her voice was full of pleasurable excitement. "It's Cyril Maxon's wife. Who is it with her, I wonder!" Mrs. Ladd was not acquainted personally, or even by hearsay, with Mrs. Lenoir.
Lady Rosaline's head went round, not quickly or eagerly, but with a well-bred show of indifference. She watched Winnie walking down the room. "Did she see us?" she asked of Mrs. Ladd.
"No, she didn't look this way. What shall we do, Rosaline? It's very awkward." Awkward as it was, Mrs. Ladd sounded more puzzled than pained.
"I only knew her very slightly—three or four quite formal calls—in the old days."
"Oh, I used to see her now and then, though it was her husband who was my friend, of course."
"Well, then, I think we can do as we like."
"I don't know. As friends of his—well, what's the right thing towards him?"
"I don't mind what's the right thing—towards Mr. Maxon," said Lady Rosaline pettishly. "It won't hurt him if we're civil to her. I shall please myself. I shan't go out of my way to look for her, but if we meet I shall bow."
"Oh, well, I must do the same as you, of course. Only I must say I hope Cyril won't hear about it and be hurt. He always expects his friends to make his quarrels theirs, you know!"
Lady Rosaline allowed herself a shrug of the shoulders; she was not bound to please Cyril Maxon—not yet. The friendly correspondence was still going on, but things looked as if it would either cease or assume a different complexion before long. She had a letter upstairs in her writing-case at this moment—an unanswered letter—in which he informed her that the last tie between Winnie and himself would be severed in a few weeks, and asked leave to join her at Bellaggio, or wherever else she was going to be, for two or three days during the Whitsuntide vacation.