"You think not? You don't half appreciate Marie. Nor did I till to-day. But I think she has got twice as much ordinary work-a-day common-sense as we supposed."
She bit a macaroon with her short sharp teeth and crunched it.
"It was sensible, very sensible, of her not to make a row of European dimensions," she continued. "No doubt when it came to, she saw how impossible it was. But to make no conditions—it was charming, simply charming of her! And how much more comfortable we shall be now, Jack! Before there was always that one little reservation: 'What if Marie knew?' That is gone now. Why didn't we let her know, oh, ages ago? It would have saved so much trouble."
She laid her finger-tips lightly on Jack's neck as she passed. He moved his head away. But she did not notice it, and passed on to her table.
"This is the photograph of her which you smashed up after the Silly Billy scandal," she said. "Have they not mended the frame well? I told them to send the bill to you. Will you dine here to-night?"
"No, I am dining at home," said Jack.
Mildred paused.
"Ah, you have people, I suppose," she said.
"No, we are dining alone, Marie and I. I have got things I must say to her."