'I lay odds that one who thinks herself very smart won't show up,' said Mrs. Ingram; 'because I happen to know that a "distinguished person," as the newspapers say, sent for the list and ran his pen through her name.'
'Whom do you mean?' asked Lady Forestfield.
'Why, that horrible old Mrs. Van Groot, who, because she is hideous and common-looking, is always going about saying atrocious things of everybody nice.'
'I don't care much about Mrs. Van Groot myself,' said Sir Wolfrey; 'but it's enough to make a woman rear and plunge a bit when she has to run in double harness with such an unmitigated cad as Van Groot. The little Dutch pug is always getting up in the House, whelping and snarling at his betters.'
'I don't think it makes much matter what sort of a husband a woman may happen to have,' said Lord Forestfield, speaking deliberately, and looking round with his cold cynical smile. 'If she is naturally wicked, the vice is sure to show itself, no matter what treatment she may receive.'
May Forestfield struggled hard but ineffectually to repress her rising colour, and the other ladies bit their lips in silence. Ugly topics such as crime (when called up for punishment), duty, and death were habitually testily ignored by them.
Captain Seaver struck in to the rescue. 'I suppose you will be going away about the beginning of next month, Lady Forestfield?' he said. 'You generally stay at your place in Sussex--I forget its name--first, don't you?'
'You mean Woodburn?' said May, whose voice exhibited traces of the emotion under which she was suffering.
'Ay, Woodburn,' said the Captain; 'handy for Goodwood, isn't it, Dick?'
'Very handy, and a pleasant place,' said Lord Forestfield quietly. 'I am going down there this afternoon.'