CHAPTER XXI
A LIE WHICH IS PART A TRUTH
"A lie which is part a truth is ever the blackest of lies,
A lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright,
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight."
—Tennyson.
Mrs. Langham-Greene's pretty town house possessed a drawing-room as elegant as its mistress, and far less harmful. It was flanked by two bay windows, admirably adapted for gazing on the peccadilloes of one's neighbours, the while one ruminated contentedly on one's own virtues. Here its fair owner loved to sit on winter afternoons, dispensing excellent tea and gossip: and here one bright January day found her brewing the witching potion for a waiting guest. This was no other than Gerald Amherst, who happened to be painting the lady's portrait. When the daylight faded she had insisted on his accompanying her home and joining her in a cup of five o'clock tea. The fair widow was not an especial favourite of the artist's; but his stock of excuses had been exhausted on previous occasions and he had therefore submitted meekly.
Mrs. Langham-Greene was a woman who wore well, as the saying is. Her figure was straight and supple as a girl of twenty's and her delicate features had escaped the pinched look which frequently accompanies thinness in a woman of fifty. Her skin had always been colourless and now resembled fine ivory; her hair, which she wore parted in the middle in the Madonna style, was only very slightly flecked with grey. Julia Langham-Greene was a distinguished woman, an interesting woman, an elegant woman. When, at thirty-five, she had first donned widow's weeds, she had created such a furore that it was many years before she found herself able to relinquish them. However, when a woman reaches forty and finds herself capable of wearing pale blue and scarlet to advantage—she usually does.
Mrs. Langham-Greene was now forty-seven, yet she could attend a fancy dress ball attired in Nile green and pearls and look the part of Undine to perfection. Small wonder, then, that she wished to transfer such lasting charms to still more lasting canvas; and Amherst had attained distinction as a portrait painter years before. She smiled delicately on him now, as she sugared his tea and inquired in tones of melted honey whether he took cream or lemon; and pondered inwardly how best to land the shaft she held in store.
"You are too good," she purred, in response to a perfunctory compliment on his part. "Far too good. Among so many young and pretty girls I fear I must have been quite unnoticed. Miss Reed, for instance! What regular features she has; quite ideal! What a pity that she has so little conversation! and such poor taste in dress. And is it true that her father has fits and that her mother was a house-maid before he married her?"
"I never heard that," returned Amherst, opening his honest eyes in amazement. "Miss Reed is a striking looking girl, but, to my mind, Miss Ladilaw is far prettier."
"But so uninteresting, don't you think?"
"Not more so than the majority of very young girls."