By this time the players at the different tables were far too much excited to take any notice of her, and it was with horror that she made the discovery that they were playing for high stakes.
Unable to obtain any attention to her evident displeasure, she looked round for Mr. Candover, whom she found in a corner by himself, an unlighted cigarette between his fingers, pensive and apparently melancholy.
“Mr. Candover,” said she, “this is your fault. I think you, who always profess to know so much better than I do what is the right thing, ought to have known better than to expose your friend’s wife to this!”
He sprang to his feet, with a look of tender reproach, not wholly unmixed with confusion, in his eyes.
“What—what have I done?” stammered he.
She repeated his words impatiently.
“What have you done? You have brought to my house—or rather you have suggested my bringing there—men whom Gerard would never have allowed me to meet.”
“Madame, you astonish me! These men are all of them either very well born or very rich. They are all in the best society, they all belong to the Army and Navy, the Carlton, or——”
“Yes, yes, I daresay. But that’s not what I mean. Men without their wives don’t count as society at all.”
“Sir Richard Lavering and Mr. Lydd, Lord Barre’s son, have brought their wives.”