"I did not mean to be," she answered. "Why should I?"
"You are content, then, to let your husband drift back into his old relations with the Duchess? I presume that you know what they were?"
"Whether I am or not," she answered, "what business is it of yours?"
"I will tell you, if you like," he answered. "In fact, I think it would be better. It has been the one desire of my life to marry the Duchess of Lenchester myself."
She smiled at him scornfully.
"Come," she said, "let me give you a little advice. Give up the idea. They say that lookers-on see most of the game, and so far as I am concerned I'm certainly the looker-on of this party. The Duchess doesn't care a row of pins about you!"
"There are other marriages, besides marriages of affection," Sir Leslie said, stiffly. "The Duchess is ambitious."
"But she is also a woman," Blanche declared. "And she is in love."
"With whom?"
"With my husband! I presume that is clear enough to most people!"