"It's all very nice for you to talk," grumbled Edith. "I'm going mad with loneliness. You have a lover near you all the time—he's mad about you. What have I? I'm utterly alone. No one loves me—no, not a soul—"
"You won't let them love you, Edith," said Constance jauntily. "They all want to love you—all of them."
"I hate men," announced Mrs. Medcroft, retrospectively.
Developments of a most refractory character swooped down upon them at the very end of the sojourn in Innsbruck. Every one had begun to rejoice in the fact that the fortnight was almost over, and that they could go their different ways without having anything really regrettable to carry away with them. The Rodneys were going to Paris, the Medcrofts to London, the Odell-Carneys (after finding out where the others were bent) to Ostend. Freddie Ulstervelt suddenly announced his determination to remain at the Tirol for a week or two longer. That very day he had been introduced to a Mademoiselle Le Brun, a fascinating young Parisian, stopping at the Tirol with her mother.
All might have ended well had it not been for the unfortunate circumstance of Odell-Carney's making a purchase of the London Standard instead of the Times, as was his custom. His lamentations over this piece of stupidity were cut short by the discovery of an astonishing article upon the editorial page of the paper—an article which created within him a sense of grave perplexity. He read the headlines thrice and glanced through the text twice, neither time with any very definite idea of what he was reading. His fingers shook as he held the sheet nearer the window for a final effort to untangle the incredible thing that lay before him in simple, unimpeachable black and white.
"'Pon me word," he kept repeating to himself feebly. Then he got up and went off in extreme haste to find his wife.
"My dear," he said to her in the carriage-way, "I must speak with you alone." She was just starting off for a drive with Mrs. Rodney.
"Bad news, Carney?" she demanded, struck by his expression. She was following him toward a remote corner of the approach. He did not reply until they were seated, much nearer to each other than was their wont.
"Read that," he said, slipping the Standard into her hands. "Wot do you think of it?"
"My dear Carney, I don't know. Would you mind telling me what I am to read?"