"Very true," agreed the Colonel. "Like birth and death."
She was silenced. Vidal seized the opportunity to advert to the political situation, inaugurating a discussion which lasted until the ladies rose from the table. The gentlemen did not linger for many minutes, and the whole party was soon on its way to Madame van de Capellan's house.
It was an evening of music and dancing, attended by the usual crowd of fashionables. More congratulations had to be endured, until Barbara said savagely under her breath that she felt like a performing animal. Lady Worth, arriving with the Earl and her brother and sister-in-law, was reminded of a captive panther, and though understanding only in part the fret and tangle of Barbara's nerves, felt a good deal of sympathy for her. She presently moved over to her side, saying with a smile: "I think you dislike all this, so I shall add nothing to what I wrote you this morning."
"Thank you," Barbara said. "The insipidity - the inanity! I could curse with vexation!"
"Indeed, an engagement does draw a disagreeably particular attention to one."
"Oh the devil! I don't care a fig for that! But this is a milk-and-water affair!" She broke off, as Worth strolled up to them, and extended a careless hand to him. "How do you do? If you have come to talk to me, let it be of horses, and by no means of my confounded engagement. I think of setting up a phaeton: will you sell me your bays?"
"No," said Worth. "I will not."
"Good! You don't mince matters. I like that. Your wife is a famous whip, I believe. For the sake of our approaching kinship, find me a pair such as you would drive yourself, and I will challenge her to a race."
"I have yet to see a pair in this town I would drive myself," replied the Earl.
"Ah! And if you had? I suppose you would not permit Lady Worth to accept my challenge?"