“I hear she is a taffy-haired manicurist,” whispered Eva Leeds, wishing they had stayed at home and played Bridge. Her losses had been shocking of late, and she felt that the tide of bad luck would certainly have turned this evening. That was always the way, she never really had a chance! “But there’s no telling . . . That may be ancient history. I haven’t heard much about him, lately.”
“About whom?” demanded Madame Valleau, bending back her handsome head in order to see the speaker. She was supposed to be the best informed lady in the Cabinet—informed, that is to say, regarding the shadowy side of the Members’ private lives.
They told her.
“Oh, Sullivan,” she cried, in her fascinating broken English. “A delightful dog, hein? I wish there were more men like him in this dull town!”
Mrs. Carmichael, having two young daughters to whom she enjoyed applying the inappropriate word “innocent”, protested.
“Why, no woman is safe with him,” she said.
“A few,” argued Madame, allowing her eyes to travel slowly over the immediate group. “Besides, who wants to feel safe with any man? Not I, for one! If women had been safe with men, there would have been no need for cavaliers, for gallantry. Sullivan is charming.”
“I think he’s a conscienceless old reprobate,” declared Mrs. Carmichael, “and the National Council should make an example of him.”
Marjorie leaned forward. It required a good deal of courage on her part to push into this argument, but she felt that loyalty to an absent friend demanded it.
“You misjudge him, Mrs. Carmichael,” she defended. “I know him very well and I am certain the things people say about him are not true. He’s too kind to everybody, that’s his trouble! He is as kind to a—a—manicurist as he is to . . . well, to me! He’s always so ready to help people and to give them good advice!”