"No. To speak frankly, I auger well of your marriage."
These words affected Irene with a sense of relief. She had imagined that Mrs. Borisoff thought otherwise. A bright smile sunned her countenance; Helen, observing it, smiled too, but more thoughtfully.
"You must bring your husband to see me in Paris some time next year. By the bye, you don't think he will disapprove of me?"
"Do you imagine Mr. Jacks——"
"What were you going to say?"
Irene had stopped as if for want of the right word She was reflecting.
"It never struck me," she said, "that he would wish to regulate my choice of friends. Yet I suppose it would be within his right?"
"Conventionally speaking, undoubtedly."
"Don't think I am in uncertainty about this particular instance," said Irene. "No, he has already told me that he liked you. But of the general question, I had never thought."
"My dear, who does, or can, think before marriage of all that it involves? After all, the pleasures of life consist so largely in the unexpected."