“What chance had we?” rejoined Mrs. Ballinger. “Mrs. Roby monopolised her from the first. And that, I’ve no doubt, was her purpose—to give Osric Dane a false impression of her own standing in the Club. She would hesitate at nothing to attract attention: we all know how she took in poor Professor Foreland.”
“She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday,” Mrs. Leveret piped up.
Laura Glyde struck her hands together. “Why, this is Thursday, and it’s there she’s gone, of course; and taken Osric with her!”
“And they’re shrieking over us at this moment,” said Mrs. Ballinger between her teeth.
This possibility seemed too preposterous to be admitted. “She would hardly dare,” said Miss Van Vluyck, “confess the imposture to Osric Dane.”
“I’m not so sure: I thought I saw her make a sign as she left. If she hadn’t made a sign, why should Osric Dane have rushed out after her?”
“Well, you know, we’d all been telling her how wonderful Xingu was, and she said she wanted to find out more about it,” Mrs. Leveret said, with a tardy impulse of justice to the absent.
This reminder, far from mitigating the wrath of the other members, gave it a stronger impetus.
“Yes—and that’s exactly what they’re both laughing over now,” said Laura Glyde ironically.
Mrs. Plinth stood up and gathered her expensive furs about her monumental form. “I have no wish to criticise,” she said; “but unless the Lunch Club can protect its members against the recurrence of such—such unbecoming scenes, I for one—”