"Isn't respectable? I've walked up the Opéra Comique stairway behind her, my dear, and there was no mistaking the social grade of her petticoats. They were entirely beyond a reputable woman's means. And you're quite right. It's downright hard on the other one. She's like my own daughter—Margery Palffy is."
"Margery Palffy! Why, how very surprising! I thought you said the girl was in America."
"No—I said 'a charming young American.' And it's really not surprising at all. My letter was from Mrs. Johnny Barrister—Madame Palffy's sister-in-law, you know. She always took charge of Margery during the summer vacations. They've a big house at Beverly, which I've never seen, and heaps of money. That's how Mr. Vane met Margery, I suppose: he seems to have had the run of the house. Molly Barrister mentioned him casually, but quite as if the engagement were a matter of course—quite as if he had come over here on purpose to see Margery."
"The lady with—er—the petticoats," suggested Mrs. Ratchett, "strikes me in the light of evidence to the contrary."
"One can never tell," said Mrs. Carnby. "He wouldn't be the first man to drive tandem. There's apt to be a leader, you see—a high-stepping, showy thoroughbred, that attracts all the attention, and does none of the work: and then, an earnest, faithful little cob, as wheeler. After a time, a man gets tired of the frills and furbelows, sells the leader to break some other fellow's neck, and settles down. Then you'll see the earnest little wheeler as much appreciated as may be, and dragging the domestic tilbury along at a rational, bourgeois rate of speed. One can never tell, my dear."
"All that," observed Mrs. Ratchett dryly, "doesn't ring true, Louisa, and—what's worse—it isn't even clever. You're fond of Margery Palffy."
"It's froth!" exclaimed Mrs. Carnby, "the kind of froth one sticks on the top of a horrid little pudding to conceal its disgusting lack of merit. Don't ask me what I think of men, Ethel. I couldn't tell you, without employing certain violent expletives, and nowadays no really original woman swears!"
A distant, whirring snore, very faint at first, had grown louder as they were speaking, and now swelled into a muffled roar, as Andrew's automobile lunged up the driveway, and stopped, sobbing, before the villa. Mrs. Carnby raised her voice, to carry across the lawn:
"Have you had breakfast?"