"Really, Laura, it was nothing. I can't tell you." She hesitated a second and into the corners of her exquisite mouth there passed a smile. "I saw my husband in a cab with—with——"
"A woman?"
Eden stared at her friend with the astonishment of a gomeril at a contortionist. The smile left her lips.
"Did you see him too?" she asked.
"Why, no, you little simpleton, I didn't see him; but I haven't got a husband of my own for nothing."
"Do you mean that your husband deceives you?"
"Deceives me? no, not a bit of it. He only thinks he does. Is that what has been the matter with you?"
"Laura——"
"And was it because you caught your husband in a cab that you couldn't come to dinner? But, heavens and earth! if other women were to act like you no one would even dare to attempt to entertain. As it is," Mrs. Manhattan grumbled to herself, "the Mayor ought to pass an ordinance on the subject. He has little enough to do in return for his double lamp-posts."
"No, Laura, how absurd you are!" Eden exclaimed. "John was detained on business."