Lord Romfrey liked her calm resignation.
“There’s a Mr. Lydiard,” he said, “a friend of Nevil’s, and a friend of Louise Devereux’s.”
“Yes; we hear from him every four hours,” Rosamund rejoined. “Mention him to her before me.”
“That’s exactly what I was going to tell you to do before me,” said her husband, smiling.
“Because, Everard, is it not so?—widows... and she loves this gentleman!”
“Certainly, my dear; I think with you about widows. The world asks them to practise its own hypocrisy. Louise Devereux was married to a pipe; she’s the widow of tobacco ash. We’ll make daylight round her.”
“How good, how kind you are, my lord! I did not think so shrewd! But benevolence is almost all-seeing: You said you spoke to Dr. Shrapnel twice. Was he... polite?”
“Thoroughly upset, you know.”
“What did he say?”
“What was it? ‘Beauchamp! Beauchamp!’ the first time; and the second time he said he thought it had left off raining.”