“Yes, I know she did,” said he, “because I was the bearer of that message from her. I thought it was a mistake, I remember, at the time.”
It was on the tip of Lady Ellington’s tongue to say, “And have told her so since,” but she remembered how terribly this would fall below her usually felicitous level of scheming. So, as the curtain went up at this moment, she turned her attention to the stage. Had it not gone up, she would have diverted the talk into other channels; the raising of the curtain was not a deliverance to her.
“Let us see what these second-rate schemers make of it all,” she said.
The act was played to a tragic end, and Philip helped her on with her cloak.
“No, they committed an initial fault,” she said; “they didn’t lay their original schemes well enough.”
But though the play was a disappointment, she pondered over it all the way home.
