"But this is abominable," murmured Anne Goodrich. It was possible that she was not in on the baiting. "Abominable. What must she think of us? Or, perhaps they don't really mean to be horrid. They look innocent enough. After all, she could tell us many interesting things."
"Oh, they mean it," said Clavering bitterly. "They mean it all right and she knows it."
"You speak as if you were even more interested in her than poor Harry Vane." The indignation had faded from Miss Goodrich's lofty countenance. "Are you?"
"Yes, I am, if you want the truth. I'd marry her tomorrow if she'd have me." This was as far as he could go.
"Oh!" Her mouth trembled, but she did not look wholly unprepared for the statement. "But—Lee—— You know how interested I have always been in you—how interested we all are in you——"
"What has that to do with it? If you are so interested in me I should think I'd have your best wishes to carry off such a prize. Have you ever seen a more remarkable woman?"
"Oh, remarkable, yes. But—well——" And then she burst out: "It seems to me unspeakably horrid. I can't say all I'd like to——"
"Pray, don't. And suppose we change the subject—— They're at it again, damn them."
The men were looking very uncomfortable. The women were gazing at their hostess with round apologetic eyes. Mrs. de Lacey, the youngest and prettiest of the married women, had clasped her hands as if worshipping at a shrine.
"It seems too terrible when we look back upon it!" she exclaimed, and she infused her tones with the tragic ring of truth, "dear Madame Zattiany, that for even a little while we thought the most awful things about you. We'd heard of the wonderful things surgeons had done to mutilated faces during the war, and we were sure that some one of them bad taken one of your old photographs—how could we even guess the truth? How you must have hated us!"