Miss Forster almost dragged Lydia into the dining-room.
“There! Of course you didn’t know he was married, did you? Neither did any of us, and I must say I think he’s behaved abominably.”
“But who is she? When did she come?” asked Lydia, still wholly bewildered at the suddenness of the revelation.
“Sit down, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Miss Forster settled her ample person in a chair, with a general expression of undeniable satisfaction.
“Just about half an hour after you’d left the house, I was just wondering if I should find dear Lady Honoret at home if I ran round—you know my great friends, Sir Rupert and Lady Honoret. I’m sure I’ve often mentioned them; they’re quite well-known people—but I thought, of course, there wouldn’t be a chance of finding them disengaged—she’s always somewhere—so Mrs. Bulteel and I were settling down to a nice, cosy time over the fire. Irene had actually made up quite a good fire, for once. And then the door opened”—Miss Forster flung open an invisible portal with characteristic energy—“and in comes Miss Nettleship—and I remember thinking to myself at the time, in a sort of flash, you know: Miss Nettleship looks pale—a sort of startled look—it just flashed through my mind. And this woman was just behind her.”
“What is she like?”
Lydia was conscious of disappointment and humiliation, but she was principally aware of extreme curiosity.
“Just what you’d expect,” said Miss Forster, with a decisiveness that somehow mitigated the extremely cryptic nature of the description. “The moment I saw her and realized who she was—and I’m bound to say Miss Nettleship spoke her name at once—that moment I said to myself that she was just what I should have expected her to be.”
Lydia, less eager for details of Miss Forster’s remarkable prescience than for further information, still looked at her inquiringly.