"Out of sheer ennui?" suggested Netta. "Oh, don't let's talk of England—I hate the thought of it. I'm sure I was created for the East. Hence the sympathy that exists between the Rajah and myself. You know, Mary, you really are absurdly prejudiced against him. Richard was the same. He never had any cause to be jealous. They simply didn't come into the same category."
Mrs. Ralston looked at her with wonder in her eyes. "You seem to forget," she said, "that Richard's murderer is being tried, and that this man is very strongly suspected of being an abettor if not the actual instigator of the crime."
Netta flicked the ash from her cigarette with a gesture of impatience. "I only wish you would let me forget these unpleasant things," she said. "Why don't you go and preach a sermon to the beautiful Stella Monck on the same text? Ralph Dacre's death was quite as much of a mystery. And the kindly gossips are every bit as busy with Captain Monck's reputation as with His Excellency's. But I suppose her devotion to that wretched little imbecile baby of hers renders her immune!"
She spoke with intentional malice, but she scarcely expected to strike home. Mary was not, in her estimation, over-endowed with brains, and she never seemed to mind a barbed thrust or two. But on this occasion Mrs. Ralston upset her calculations.
She arose in genuine wrath. "Netta!" she said. "I think you are the most heartless, callous woman I have ever met!"
And with that she went straight from the room, shutting the door firmly behind her.
"Good gracious!" commented Netta. "Mary in a tantrum! What an exciting spectacle!"
She stretched her slim body like a cat as she lay with the warm sunshine pouring over her, and presently she laughed.
"How funny! How very funny! Netta, my dear, they'll be calling you wicked next."
She pursed her lips over the adjective as if she rather enjoyed it, then stretched herself again luxuriously, with sensuous enjoyment. She had riden with the Rajah in the early morning, and was pleasantly tired.