Mrs. Hadwell had lost her usual calm and diplomacy.
"Really," she continued with a sudden burst of candour, "really how I do hate women! They're every bit as nasty as men, and nothing like so nice into the bargain. I wish I need never see a woman again—except Lynn."
This coming from the politic and tactful Mrs. Hadwell had the effect of a thunderclap. Before her listeners had recovered the housemaid announced Mrs. Waite and that lady entered.
Since inheriting her legacy, Mrs. Hadwell's former housekeeper had hired a small furnished house and was living there alone. General Shaftan's house, her property, was advertised for sale; a proceeding which had roused some interest in Montreal society.
"How funny of her not to live there until it sells or rents! Can it be that that sourfaced woman is afraid of ghosts?" some had asked.
She stood now in the doorway, looking from one to the other with her peculiarly cold and expressionless manner. "Excuse me," she said without preliminary, "but as I was walking through the hall just now I heard what you were saying; I could not help hearing. Is it true that Miss Thayer is in trouble?"
"Are you interested in Miss Thayer?" inquired Mrs. Langham-Greene with courtly insolence.
"Yes."
The two women faced one another in silence; the one beautiful, patrician, elegant; the other, plain, sad-faced, and, apparently, old. A whole world lay between them; nor was the chasm bridged by the fact that both had loved the same man. Mrs. Hadwell, with her usual quick intuition, could feel the air charged with import and longed to know what lay beneath these different exteriors. Instead she turned to Mrs. Langham-Greene with a question.
"May I ask what your object was in laying these slanders about Miss Thayer before me?" she said.