“What are you driving at?”
“I mean that Emmy has been a little too careless this last year. People simply won’t swallow Pix—the men hate him so. There was a little doubt before, but of course there’s none now. She let him go to the Riviera with her.”
“Are you trying to make me believe that Mr. Pix is Emmy’s lover?”
“You don’t mean to say you are an infant in arms?”
“Of course I’m well enough used to women and their lovers, by this time; but somehow one never thinks that sort of thing can happen in one’s own family. It is plain enough, I suppose. She might at least have chosen a gentleman.”
“She might indeed; that’s her crime. Pick up with the wrong man, and Society is on its hind legs in no time. I’ve seen it coming for an age. She certainly must know that she’s got off the track as well as any one can tell her, and considering the way she’s worked for one thing for five-and-twenty years, it’s rather surprising; but the trouble is, she’s in love with him, I fancy.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it; but if her original commonness demanded a mate she certainly could have found a bounder with a little more gilding. There are one or two with the title she adores.”
Lee spoke with heat and bitterness. She had the indifference of familiarity to many things that had horrified her youthful ideals, but a lover under the family roof filled her with protest.
“Emmy’s a curious contradiction——” began Lady Mary.
“What’s to be done? Of course it can’t go on. Lord Barnstaple or Cecil could put a stop to it, but I can’t tattle on any woman——”