"Rather persistently gay," said the older woman. "That is it, I think."
Lately there had been a greater change still and a more baffling one, and there had appeared upon the scene an element so new and strange as to set all ordinary conjecture at naught. The first breath of rumor which had wafted the story of Planefield's infatuation and the Westoria schemes had been met with generous displeasure and disbelief; but, as time went on, it had begun to be more difficult to make an effort against discussion which grew with each day and gathered material as it passed from one to another. The most trivial circumstance assumed the proportions of proof when viewed in the light of the general too vivacious interest. When Senator Planefield entered a room people instantly cast about in search of Mrs. Amory, and reposed entire confidence in the immediately popular theory that, but for the presence of the one, the absence of the other would have been a foregone conclusion. If they met each other with any degree of vivacity the fact was commented upon in significant asides; if Bertha's manner was cold or quiet it was supposed to form a portion of her deep-laid plan for the entire subjugation of her victim. It had, indeed, come to this at last, and Tredennis' friend looked on and listened bewildered to find herself shaken in her first disbelief by an aspect of affairs too serious to be regarded with indifference. By the time the season drew toward its close the rumor, which had at first been accepted only by rumor-lovers and epicures in scandal, had found its way into places where opinion had weight, and decision was a more serious matter. In one or two quiet establishments there was private debating of various rather troublesome questions, in which debates Mrs. Amory's name was frequently mentioned. Affairs as unfortunate as the one under discussion had been known to occur before, and it was not impossible that they might occur again; it was impossible to be blind to them; it was impossible to ignore or treat them lightly, and certainly something was due to society from those who held its reins in their hands for the time being.
"It is too great leniency which makes such things possible," some one remarked. "To a woman with a hitherto unspotted reputation and in an entirely respectable position they should be impossible."
It was on the very evening that this remark was made that Bertha expressed a rather curious opinion to Laurence Arbuthnot.
"It is dawning upon me," she said, "that I am not quite so popular as I used to be, and I am wondering why."
"What suggested the idea?" Laurence inquired.
"I scarcely know," she replied, a little languidly, "and I don't care so much as I ought. People don't talk to me in so animated a manner as they used to—or I fancy they don't. I am not very animated myself, perhaps. There is a great deal in that. I know I am deteriorating conversationally. What I say hasn't the right ring exactly, and I suppose people detect the false note, and don't like it. I don't wonder at it. Oh, there is no denying that I am not so much overpraised and noticed as I used to be!"
And then she sat silent for some time and appeared to be reflecting, and Laurence watched her with a dawning sense of anxiety he would have been reluctant to admit the existence of even to himself.