"I know," said the hostess. "Then Marjorie Burness is coming—such a dear! knows all the latest stories about everyone."
"I don't think I've met her," said the duchess, "is she quite?"
"Not exactly; she was a Miss Lovibond—Lovering—some name like that. Parson's daughter, Kensington people, dontcherknow; but so amusin'—fat, too, she is."
"Oh!" said the duchess.
"Then there's a Mr. Sanderson Tom asked. He keeps a school board, or wants the poor to live noble lives in Hackney—somethin' of that sort. Eliza Facinorious and the Baron, Lady Darwin Swift, Mr. Justice Coll, Bradley Bere, the new writin' boy, Lord Saul Horridge, and of course the girls. That's all, I think."
"Oh!" said the duchess again.
She was rather a damaged duchess, and very impertinent, but Mrs. Chitters was exceedingly glad to get her. She really was a duchess, which, if a woman has no brains, money, or comeliness, is the best thing she can be. She was staying for a week with Colonel Chitters and his wife.
The dinner was for the joy of Mr. Mordaunt Sturtevant, who had just taken silk. The most eminent member of the criminal bar, he would have been Queen's Counsel long ago if it had not been for some vague rumours of his early life.
A footman opened the door, the duchess her eye-glasses, and Mrs. Chitters the conversation. Mr. Bradley Bere was announced, a youth apparently of seventeen, but of a great name; the rich uncleanness of his life almost rivalling his stories, and both being given undue prominence by his friends on the weekly press. Then came Lord Saul Horridge, a tall melancholy man, whose life was crushed by an energetic mother, whose forte was teetotalism, and whose weakness was omniscience.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Burness came in, were effusively greeted by the hostess, and passed on to amuse the duchess. Mrs. Burness, nèe Marjorie Lovering, had grown too stout for flirtation, and feeling the want of a mètier, had turned her thoughts to scandal, and achieved a great success. Her husband, a clerk in the War Office, used to say that his wife had a higher regard for truth than anyone he knew—she used it so economically.