Brenda thought for some moments before replying.
'Then,' she said at length, with some determination, 'we must make sure of our start, if, that is, you are still determined to leave him.'
Mrs. Huston was looking down at her sister's neat black dress, about which there was a subtle air of refined luxury, which seems natural to some women, and part of their being.
'Yes, yes, I suppose we must. By the way, dear, you are in mourning ... for whom?'
'For Admiral Wylie,' replied Brenda patiently.
'But it is two months—is it not?—since his death, and he was no relation. I think it is unnecessary. Black is so melancholy, though it suits your figure.'
'I am living with Mrs. Wylie,' Brenda explained with unconscious irony. 'Are you still determined that you cannot live with your husband, Alice?'
'My dear, he is a brute! I am not an impulsive person, but I think that if he should catch me again, it is very probable that I should do something desperate—kill myself, or something of that sort.'
'I do not think,' observed Brenda serenely, 'that you would ever kill yourself.'
The beautiful woman laughed in an easy, lightsome way, which was one of her many social gifts. It was such a pleasantly infectious laugh, so utterly light-hearted, and so ready in its vocation of filling up awkward pauses.