"She knows right enough, for, as I have said, the doctor was with her yesterday, talking across the garden fence."
Mrs. Fox smoked her second and third cigarette, drank tea with Joyce, and, when every topic of interest was exhausted, wended her way homeward, deploring the fact that her husband was too selfish to give her a motor-car. "He doesn't care for one, so I have to do without; and with only one riding-horse and that one lame, I am obliged to tramp the dusty lanes on foot."
"I am also without a conveyance while my husband is in camp," said Joyce, "but it does not matter as I like walking."
"I don't. My frocks are not suited to pedestrian exercise and cost too much—" which suggested the idea to Joyce that Mrs. Fox's expensive clothes accounted for her husband's economy in other directions. She watched her swaying languidly down the drive, a tall and graceful figure, stylishly dressed and pretty in a faded way, in spite of the delicate pink of her oval cheek and the brightness of her thin lips. What a pity it was that she had never a good word for any one, and made herself so ridiculous with the men, thought Joyce; it lowered her in their estimation and laid her open to impudence. Though she was attractive to many, she never succeeded in holding the attention of her admirers very long; which was humiliating to say the least of it. Joyce looked upon her as an example of a true flirt, and feared her accordingly—not on her husband's account, for Ray gave her a wide berth—but as a criminal at large. Women had whispered tales which she found impossible to credit; the world was so censorious! But on the theory that there was never any smoke without fire, she decided that Mrs. Fox was unscrupulous, and deplored the fact that the Station was obliged to put up with her. Apparently, so long as a husband countenanced his wife, no one else had any right to object to whatever she might do! It was a strange world!
The trend of her thoughts reminded her of the doctor's estimate of herself, which he had subsequently withdrawn. But then, he could only have been teasing, for Joyce knew herself, and flirting was very far from her intentions at any time, or under any circumstance. For instance, she was very sure she would never allow any man but her husband to kiss her!—the bare idea was appalling!
After the tennis hour at the Club, Honor Bright cycled up to the steps of the Bara Koti, and ran in to embrace Mrs. Meredith and welcome her home. "I am sorry not to have been able to come earlier, there was so much to do, and a tennis match in the afternoons," she said in her full, deep voice which Joyce thought so musical. Yet she never sang. God had given her a larynx, but the wicked fairies had robbed her of ear, so, though she loved music passionately, she could never produce a tune. "I must be fit only for 'treasons, stratagems, and spoils,'" she was once heard to say, "for it seems I was not born musical."
However, it was pointed out to her that she was not just to herself; she had plenty of "music in her soul" to satisfy even Shakespeare; it was only her inability to use the divine instrument in her throat. "You put me in mind of 'Trilby.' Perhaps you will sing if you are hypnotised!" Joyce had told her.
"Captain Dalton mentioned that you and Baby had both been ill. However I am glad to see you so well. How is Squawk?"
"How can you call him such a horrid name!" said Joyce reproachfully.
Honor laughed heartily. "Tommy is responsible; you must scold him."