"He hasn't mentioned you to me as yet."
"No? Oh!" and Edith, Viscountess Effington, Hal's wife, walked slowly over to the coffee service and lit a cigarette. She watched the vagrant smoke with a retrospective air.
"I had a curious sensation at dinner," she said. "I found I wasn't hearing what Lord Yester was saying. All of a sudden I was frightened. I felt as if I were choking. Hal seemed to stand behind and over Lord Yester and I got a queer idea that he had come back to, to—Winifred, you and he have always been pals; you tell him. Tell him all there is to tell, about Lord Yester and myself, so that he will be prepared, and make him understand that if ne has come back to interfere with my plans"—and her lips shut and her eyes glistened ominously—"well, don't let him think of it."
"I think he knows you do as you please."
"Why shouldn't I?" said Edith with a little reckless laugh. "Why shouldn't I? I've only one life to live and that's mine, to live my way. I'm selfish; so is everybody else. Some people get a selfish pleasure out of pretending to be unselfish. Well, let them! I'm not a hypocrite, thank God!"
Edith took from her enormous ermine muff a gold and jewelled bonbon box, extracted from it a tablet, and swallowed it with a drink of brandy which she had poured from a decanter.
"Sir George's prescription for my headaches," she explained in answer to the other's look of disapproval.
"The brandy part of the prescription, Edith?"
"Not having headaches, Winifred, you have a fine superiority to those who have." And she pulled the long opera cloak of emerald green like the breast of the humming-bird about her white shoulders, adjusted her ermine stole as if she were cold, walked slowly toward the stairs. In repose she was very soft, pliant, lambent, but, when moved, quick and violent. She turned and stiffened, threw her head up into the air, and came down swiftly to Lady Winifred's side.
"I must have this settled now—to-night! I can't stand this suspense. If he attempts to upset my plans——"