“By the way,” said Sir Eustace carelessly, “I saw your old flame, Lady Croston, yesterday, and told her you were coming home. She makes a charming widow.”
“What!” ejaculated his brother, slowly raising himself out of his chair in astonishment. “Is her husband dead?”
“Dead? Yes, died a year ago, and a good riddance too. He appointed me one of his executors; I am sure I don’t know why, for we never liked each other. I think he was the most disagreeable fellow I ever knew. They say he gave his wife a roughish time of it occasionally. Serve her right, too.”
“Why did it serve her right?”
Sir Eustace shrugged his shoulders.
“When a heartless girl jilts the fellow she is engaged to in order to sell herself to an elderly beast, I think she deserves all she gets. This one did not get half enough; indeed, she has made a good thing of it—better than she expected.”
His brother sat down again before he answered in a constrained voice, “Don’t you think you are rather hard on her, Eustace?”
“Hard on her? No, not a bit of it. Of all the worthless women that I know, I think Madeline Croston is the most worthless. Look how she treated you.”
“Eustace,” broke in his brother almost sharply, “if you don’t mind, I wish you would not talk of her like that to me. I can’t—in short, I don’t like it.”
Sir Eustace’s eyeglass dropped out of Sir Eustace’s eye—he had opened it so wide to stare at his brother. “Why, my dear fellow,” he ejaculated, “you don’t mean to tell me you still care for that woman?”