"A viper, Laura," growled the Crow. "She's trying to get him again in the rebound."
"I cannot imagine why women cannot leave other women's husbands alone. They are hateful creatures, most of them."
"Natural instinct of the chase," said Colonel Lowerby.
But Lady Anningford flashed.
"You are a cynic, Crow."
"And you will really show me your favorite haunts to-morrow, Lady Ethelrida?" Francis Markrute was saying to his hostess. He had contrived insidiously to detach her conversation from a group to himself, and drew her unconsciously towards a seat where they would be uninterrupted. "One judges so of people by their tastes in haunts."
Lady Ethelrida never spoke of herself as a rule. She was not in the habit of getting into those—abstract to begin with, and personal to go on with—thrilling conversations with men, which most of the modern young women delight in, and which were the peculiar joy of Lily Opie.
It was because for some unacknowledged reason the financier personally pleased her that she now drifted where he wished.
"Mine are very simple, I fear, nothing for you to investigate," she said gently.