Not very far away, in the Rue Ducale, Lady Vidal shared this mental inability and did not scruple to say so. She had looked narrowly at her sister-in-law when she had come in to breakfast, and had not failed to notice the flame in Barbara's eyes and the colour in her cheeks. "What have you been doing?" she asked. "You look quite wild, let me tell you!"
"Oh yes! I am quite wild!" Barbara answered. "I have taken your advice, Gussie! There! Aren't you pleased?"
"I wish I knew what you meant!"
"Why, that I am engaged to be married, to be sure!" Her brother's attention was caught by these words.
"What's that? Engaged? Nonsense!"
Lady Vidal exclaimed: "Bab! Are you serious? It is Lavisse?"
"Lavisse?" repeated Barbara, as though dragging the name up from the recesses of her memory. "No! Oh no! My staff officer!"
"Are you mad? Charles Audley? You cannot mean it!"
"Yes, I do - today, at least!"
Augusta said bitterly: "I never reckoned stupidity among your faults. Good God, Bab, how can you be such a fool? With your looks and birth you may marry whom you please: the lord knows you've had chances enough! and you choose a penniless soldier! I will not believe it of you!"