She blamed Nelson, too; but, womanlike, blamed Annesley more. Sometimes she determined to put out a claw and draw blood from both, but changed her mind, remembering that to do them harm she must harm herself.
Once it occurred to her to form a separate, secret alliance with Constance Annesley-Seton. There were reasons why that might have suited her, and she began one day to feel her ground when Connie had telephoned, and had come to her flat for advice from the crystal. She had "seen things" which she thought Lady Annesley-Seton would like her to see, and when the séance was ended in a friendly talk, the Countess de Santiago begged Constance to call her Madalena. "You are my first real friend in England!" she said.
"Except my cousin Anne," Connie amended, with a sharp glance from the green-gray eyes to see whether "Madalena" were "working up to anything."
"Oh, I can't count her!" said the Countess. "She doesn't like me. She wouldn't have me come near her if it weren't for her husband. I am quick to feel things. You, I believe, really do like me a little, so I can speak freely to you. And you know you can to me."
But Constance, in the slang of her girlhood days, "wasn't taking any." She was afraid that Madalena was trying to draw her into finding fault with her host and hostess, in order to repeat what she said, with embroideries, to Nelson Smith or Annesley. She was not a woman to be caught by the subtleties of another; and in dread of compromising herself did the Countess de Santiago an injustice. If she had ventured any disparaging remarks of "Cousin Anne," they would not have been repeated.
The season began early and brilliantly that year, for the weather was springlike, even in February; and people were ready to enjoy everything. The one blot on the general brightness was a series of robberies. Something happened on an average of every ten or twelve days, and always in an unexpected quarter, where the police were not looking.
Among the first to suffer were Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. The Portman Square house was broken into, the thief entering a window of the "den" on the ground floor, and making a clean sweep of all the jewellery Knight and Annesley owned except her engagement ring, the string of pearls which had been her lover's wedding gift, and the wonderful blue diamond on its thin gold chain. These things she wore by night as well as day; but a gold-chain bag, a magnificent double rope of pearls, a diamond dog-collar, several rings, brooches, and bangles which Knight had given her since their marriage, all went.
His pearl studs, his watch (a present out of Annesley's allowance, hoarded for the purpose), and a collection of jewelled scarf-pins shared the fate of his wife's treasures.
Unfortunately, a great deal of the Annesley-Seton family silver went at the same time, regretted by Knight far beyond his own losses. Dick was inclined to be solemn over such a haul, but Constance laughed.