"But you do like Englishmen, all the same," suggested the Bishop.
"I'm not going to say that I like Englishmen as much as Americans. Nothing will drag that from me, if I never set foot in the States again. But as to that, Wargrave has promised me a trip every two years. I wouldn't have married him without, though you can see that I adore him, and I'm not ashamed of showing it."
"Well then, you like Englishmen next best to Americans."
"Perhaps I do, though I think Frenchmen are real cute. They've a way with them. With an Englishman you generally have to do more than half yourself. With a Frenchman you've got to be mighty smart to see that you get the chance of doing your half. With an Englishman, when you're once married it's finished, but I should judge that you would have to get busy and keep busy, married to a Frenchman."
Ella Carruthers stole a look at Beatrix, who was seated a few places away from her. She had been talking to her neighbour, but now sat with her eyes fixed upon the speaker. Her colour was a little heightened, but it was impossible to tell from her look what she was thinking. Ella hoped for her sake that the conversation would not be continued on that subject, and prepared her wits to divert it. But the next moment something had been said which changed her feeling from one of sympathy with Beatrix to one of sharp alarm on her behalf.
"A French Marquis came to N'York last fall," pursued Lady Wargrave, "who was the cutest thing in the way of European nobility you ever struck. He talked English like an Amurrcan, and was a poifectly lovely man to look at. One of my girl friends has just gotten engaged to him; I had the noos from her last mail. Of course I wrote back that I was enchanted, but if he had wanted me there'd have been no Marquise yet awhile. But I wasn't rich enough anyway. The Frenchmen who come over are always out for the dollars, the Englishmen let them go by sometimes. Wargrave did. He could have had one of our big fortunes, if he wouldn't rather have had me."
Poor little Beatrix! She was spared the hammer-stroke of hearing her lover's name in public, but there was never any doubt in her mind that it was he. She turned dead white, and kept her eyes fixed upon Lady Wargrave until she had finished her speech and passed on lightly to some other topic. Then she turned to her neighbour and listened to something he was saying to her, but without hearing it, and she was obliged to leave off peeling the orange she held because her hands were trembling.
There happened to be nobody at that end of the table, listening to Lady Wargrave, who could connect her speech with Beatrix, except Ella Carruthers. Beatrix, when she had sat still and silent for a moment, looked at her suddenly with an appealing look, and found her eyes fixed upon her with the deepest concern. That enabled her to overcome her tremors. She would have broken down if Ella, by any word, had drawn attention to her. She suddenly turned to her neighbour and began to chatter. He was an elderly man, interested in his dinner, who had not noticed her sudden pallor. As she talked, her colour came back to her, and she hardly left off talking until the sign was given, rather prematurely, for the ladies to leave the table. Her knees were trembling as she rose from her seat, and she was glad of Ella's arm to support her as she walked from the room.
"No," she said, in answer to a low-spoken word of going upstairs. "I don't want to. Ask if it's he—but I know it is—and tell Caroline to come and tell me."
She made her way to a sofa in a corner of the big drawing-room, and sat down, while the rest of the women clustered around the chimney-piece. She sat there waiting, without thought and without much sensation. She was conscious only of revolt against the blow that had been dealt her, and determination to support it.