“You are shameless and provoking,” Miss Marling said crossly and left him.
Chapter II
In the sunny withdrawing-room which overlooked the street sat the Duchess of Avon, listening to her sister-in-law, Lady Fanny Marling, who had called to pay her a morning visit, and to talk over the week’s doings over a cup of chocolate and little sweet biscuits.
Lady Fanny no longer looked her best in the crude light of day, but her grace, though turned forty now, still retained a youthful bloom in her cheeks, and had no need at all to shrink from the sunlight. Lady Fanny, who had taken care to seat herself with her back to the window, could not help feeling slightly resentful. There really seemed to be so little difference between her grace, and the boy-girl whom Avon had brought to England twenty-four years ago. Léonie’s figure was as slim as ever, her Titian hair, worn just now en négligé, was untouched by grey, and her eyes, those great dark-blue eyes which had first attracted the Duke, held all their old sparkle. Twenty-four years of marriage had given her dignity, when she chose to assume it, and much feminine wisdom, which she had lacked in the old days, but no wifely or motherly responsibility, no weight of honours, of social eminence had succeeded in subduing the gamin spirit in her. Lady Fanny considered her far too impulsive, but since she was, at the bottom of her somewhat shallow heart, very fond of her sister-in-law, she admitted that Léonie’s impetuosity only added to her charm.
To-day, however, she was in no mood to admire the Duchess. Life was proving itself a tiresome business, full of unpaid bills and undutiful daughters. Vaguely it annoyed her that Léonie (who had a thoroughly unsatisfactory son if only she could be brought to realize it) should look so carefree.
“I vow,” she said rather sharply, “I do not know why we poor creatures slave and fret our lives out for our children, for they are all ungrateful and provoking and only want to disgrace one.”
Léonie wrinkled her brow at that. “I do not think,” she said seriously, “that John would ever want to disgrace you, Fanny.”
“Oh, I was not talking of John!” said her ladyship. “Sons are another matter, though to be sure I should not say so to you, for you have trouble enough with poor dear Dominic, and indeed I wonder how it is he has not turned your hair white with worry already, and young as he is.”
“I do not have trouble with Dominique,” said Léonie flatly. “I find him fort amusant.”
“Then I trust you will find his latest exploit fort amusant,” said Lady Fanny tartly. “I make no doubt he will break his neck over it, for what must he do at the drum last night but wager young Crossly — as mad a rake as ever I set eyes on, and I should be prodigious sorry to see my son in his company — that he would drive his curricle from London to Newmarket in four hours. Five hundred guineas on it, so I heard — play or pay!”