"About what?" asks she promptly.
"About many things." Perhaps the girl's bluntness has daunted her a little, because, as she says this, she moves uneasily, and finally changes her seat for a low lounge that brings the light on the back of her head. "I am sorry to say I have heard several unpleasant things about you of late."
Tita stares at her.
"I don't understand you," says she.
"Then it must be my unhappy task to have to explain myself," says Tessie, who has now recovered herself, and is beginning to revel in the situation. The merriest game of all, to some people, is that of hurting the feelings of others. "For one thing, I am grieved to hear that you have made my son far from happy in his married life."
A quick red dyes Tita's face. It lasts for a moment only. She controls herself admirably, and, going to a chair, pulls it a little forward in a perfectly self-possessed fashion, pausing a little over the exact position of it, after which she seats herself amongst the cushions.
"Has Maurice told you that?" asks she.
"Maurice? No!" haughtily. "In our set husbands do not complain of their wives."
"No?" says Tita. She looks amused. "Then who else could it be in 'our set' who has said nasty little things about me? Mrs. Bethune?"
"All this is beside the question," says the dowager, with a wave of her hand. "There is something else I must speak of—painful though it is to me!" She unfurls the everlasting fan, and wafts it delicately to and fro, as if to blow away from her the hideous aroma of the thing she is forced to say. "I hear you have established a—er—a far too friendly relationship with a—er—a cousin of your own."