A tall, heavily built man, who had been reading some letters at the other end of the room, came sauntering up to them.
“Well,” he said, “you assuredly live up to your principles, for you travel all over the world as though it were one vast playground.”
“And sometimes,” she remarked, “my journeys are not exactly successful. I know that that is what you are dying to say.”
“On the contrary,” he said, “I do not blame you at all for this last affair. You brought Lucille here, which was excellent. Your failure as regards Mr. Sabin is scarcely to be fastened upon you. It is Horser whom we hold responsible for that.”
She laughed.
“Poor Horser! It was rather rough to pit a creature like that against Souspennier.”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Horser,” he said, “may not be brilliant, but he had a great organisation at his back. Souspennier was without friends or influence. The contest should scarcely have been so one-sided. To tell you the truth, my dear Muriel, I am more surprised that you yourself should have found the task beyond you.”
Lady Carey’s face darkened.
“It was too soon after the loss of Lucille,” she said, “and besides, there was his vanity to be reckoned with. It was like a challenge to him, and he had taken up the glove before I returned to New York.”