"Mrs. Terry really dragged Hughy out of town?" one of them asked, assuming a familiarity with Bellmer that I suspect he cannot claim.
"Guess so; he's playing horse with old Bellmer's money; always wrong side of the betting."
"Needs Keeley cure. Good natured cuss; wonder if the Winship'll get him."
"Lay ye three to one—say twenties—that he gets away, like that Strathay—"
I addressed some smiling speech to the wretches, but through the whole evening my cheeks did not cease to burn.
When the last guest had gone, tired and hysterical as she was, Mrs. Whitney began a long tirade.
"It must be stopped! It must be stopped!" she cried, pacing back and forth.
The blaze of anger improved her. She must have been a handsome woman once—tall and slender, with fine dark eyes that roll about dramatically.
"I don't see what there is to stop," I said, perversity taking possession of me, though at heart I quite agreed with her estimate of the evening. "The object of an entertainment being to entertain, why shouldn't the men I know come to ours? If they stayed away, you'd be disappointed; but when they come, as they did to-night, you're frightened, or pretend to be."
"I'm not frightened; I'm appalled. I don't mean Mr. Burke, though he's a detrimental—and, by the way, he was as much distressed to-night as I was. I mean the men who have families—wives and daughters! Why didn't they bring 'em—or stay away?"