She gave a little frightened gasp as these intimate discoveries, cape after cape, bay after bay, came into vision. And what complaint had she of her husband, but that they had long been at discord? No breath of scandal, even from the gutter, had ever reached her ears about him. She had no reason, absolutely none, for supposing that he had not been far more faithful to her than she to him. But when he kissed her she had shrunk away from him.
Now, since her drive in the Park a few days before, and the discovery attendant thereon that efforts were necessary, a militant spirit had possessed Mildred. She was seen everywhere, at her loudest and most characteristic; she had simply summoned Maud from the retirement at Windsor, she had secured a record party for next Sunday, and for the sake of general completeness she had determined, in spite of Lady Ardingly, to ask Jack and Marie. The notice was very short, and, instead of writing a note, she drove round this morning to Park Lane to deliver her invitation verbatim; she likewise wished, in case Marie was in, to air a few poisonous nothings, scouts, as it were, of her advancing armies. And arriving at this moment, she was admitted and shown upstairs.
"Dearest Marie, it is ages, simply ages!" she began. "I have come to supplicate. Do come down to Windsor from Saturday till Monday. You shall not be bored; there is Guardina to sing to you, and the place really looks too lovely. Maud has been describing it to me; she came up yesterday. And there are half the Front Bench coming on Sunday. It might be useful for Jack to be there. My dear, what do you think of Jack's speech? However, about Saturday first."
"I don't think we can," said Marie. "We have already refused two Saturday parties on the plea of— If I only could remember the plea it might be more hopeful. Political plea, I think."
"That's just right, then," said Mildred. "Jack will have a quiet talk with the old gang. Besides, Marie, if one only saw you on the days when you had not refused an invitation, I should not know you by sight in a year. So you'll come."
"Well, I think 'political' covers it," she said. "I shall be charmed if Jack has made no other arrangement. And his speech. What do you think of it?"
Mildred held up her hands in despairing deprecation.
"I thought I should have died," she said. "It is too sad when you see a clever man industriously digging his own grave. One always does it eventually by mistake, but on purpose like that, and with his eyes open!"
"Did it strike you so?"
"Surely, and the ridiculous point is that Jim said almost precisely the same things down at Freshfield."