"Oh, the usual time—as long as ever he likes."
"I wonder what has brought him out? Says he does not shoot, what can it be?"
"Perhaps to search for a wife?" gaily suggested Mrs. Brander.
"As if a man in his position would look at an Indian spin!" rejoined Mrs. Villars with withering scorn.
"He might do worse," argued the other briskly. "We have a large assortment of really pretty girls, quite fresh and dainty—nothing shop soiled!"
"Really, Nancy, what dreadful things you do say! and if you call any girl in Madras pretty—I don't." As Mrs. Villars concluded, she turned and surveyed herself in the glass, and Nancy Brander thus released effected her escape.
Lena Villars was a shallow, more or less amiable woman, endowed by nature with a lovely face, perfect health, and perennial youth—but stinted in the matter of heart and brain, and with a moral outlook that was somewhat oblique.
She appreciated luxury, had a consuming passion for clothes, and was absolutely devoid of the money sense. Her chief interest in life was the attitude of men towards herself, and she cherished an inexorable resolution to be first, or nowhere.
After gazing exhaustively at her own charming reflection, the beauty stole away to her room, there to repair some little flaws in her toilet previous to the great business of the evening.
Meanwhile, in a remote corner of the verandah, the two girl friends were exchanging miserable confidences in low voices.