“What’s this?” cried Romer, getting up and throwing his cigar out of the window. “You don’t mean to tell me—eh?—that this scarecrow is in love with Gladys?”
The lady purred softly and replaced her spectacles. “Oh dear no! What an idea! Oh certainly, certainly not! But Gladys, you know, is not the only girl in Nevilton.”
“Who the devil is it then? Not Vennie Seldom, surely?”
“Look nearer, Mortimer, look nearer”; murmured the lady with sibilant sweetness.
“Not Lacrima! You don’t mean to say—”
“Why, dear, you needn’t be so surprised. You look more angry than if it had been Gladys herself. Yes, of course it is Lacrima. Hadn’t you observed it? But you dear men are so stupid, aren’t you, in these things?”
Mrs. Romer rubbed one white hand over the other; and beamed upon her husband through her spectacles.
Mr. Romer frowned. “But the Traffio girl is so, so—you know what I mean.”
“So quiet and unimpressionable. Ah! my dear, it is just these quiet girls who are the very ones to be enjoying themselves on the sly.”
“How far has this thing gone, Susan?”