“No, there is no reason to be sorry. They all have it.”
“But,” protested Dora, “I am not one of them. I am only aping the Romans.”
“You do it well; I shall study your method. You do it better than Edith Mazerod.”
“Edith is young—hopelessly, enviably young. Do you know them well?”
“Yes, I knew them in India.”
“Of course; I forgot.”
He turned and looked at her sharply. Sometimes his own reputation, far from being a happiness, gave him cause for misgiving. A man with an unclean record cannot well be sure that all the details he would wish suppressed have been suppressed. There was a little pause, during which they both watched the self-satisfied throng moving in and out, here and there, full of a restless desire to be observed.
It was Seymour Michael who spoke first. True to his mixed blood, he sought to make himself safe.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but Edith Mazerod did not mention your name; may I ask it?”
“Dora Glynde!”