"Isn't that Mrs. Chudleigh he's now talking to?"
Mrs. Ashborne was short-sighted, but Margaret Keith's eyes were better, and she noticed the stylish woman whom Sedgwick had joined.
"Yes," she said. "A widow, I believe, though one would not suspect it from her clothes. She seems to know some of my friends, but I met her here for the first time a few days ago."
"She married very young and her husband, who died in a few years, left her a good deal of money; he was a merchant in Calcutta. She's too smart and advanced for my taste, but her people have some standing. It looks as if she were attracted by Sedgwick; she's undoubtedly gracious to him."
"Then it's an opportunity he won't miss. The man's an adventurer."
Sedgwick and his companion passed out of sight, and Mrs. Ashborne opened the Morning Post, from which she presently looked up.
"'A marriage—between Blanche Newcombe and Captain Challoner—at Thornton Holme, in Shropshire,'" she read out. "Do you know the bride?"
"I know Bertram Challoner better," Mrs. Keith replied, and was silent for a minute or two, musing on former days. Then she went on: "His mother was an old friend of mine; a woman of imagination, with strong artistic tastes, and Bertram resembles her. It was his father, the Colonel, who forced him into the army, and I'm somewhat astonished that he has done so well."
"They were all soldiers, I understand. But wasn't there some scandal about a cousin?"
"Richard Blake?" said Mrs. Keith, making room for Millicent Graham, her companion, who rejoined them. "It's getting an old story, and I always found it puzzling. So far as one could judge, Dick Blake should have made an excellent officer; his mother, the Colonel's sister, was true to the Challoner strain, his father a reckless Irish sportsman."