"Did I say she knew them intimately?" protested the other, somewhat plaintively. "How like me! So stupid! As a matter of fact, my dear, I don't believe Frances knows them at all—except as one knows people in a general sort of way. Drawing-rooms, you know, and all that sort of thing. Of course, every one knows Lord and Lady Murgatroyd. Just as they might know the Duke of—well any one of the great dukes, for that matter."
"Or King George," added Mrs. Wrandall softly, without a perceptible trace of spite.
"She has met them, of course," said Mrs. Rowe-Martin defensively. Somehow, a defence was called for; she couldn't sit there and say nothing.
Mrs. Wrandall changed the subject, or at least divided it. She put the chaff aside, for that was what Mrs. Rowe-Martin's revelations amounted to.
"Leslie is such a steady, unimpressionable boy, you see," she said, apropos of nothing.
"And so good looking," added her friend beamingly.
"It wouldn't be like him to make a mistake where his own happiness and welfare are concerned," said the subject's mother, speaking more truth than she knew, but not more than Mrs. Rowe-Martin knew. That lady knew Leslie like a book.
"And he is really devoted to her?"
"I fear so," said her hostess, with a faint sigh. The other sighed also.
"My dear, it would be perfectly lovely. Why do you say that?"