Her low-cut dress was of yew-green, with, little threads of flame-colour, matching her hair, so that there was about her a splendour of darkness and whiteness and gold, almost dazzling; and she stood very still, leaning back against the lighter green of the billiard-table, grasping its edge so tightly that the smooth strong backs of her hands quivered.
“We have just heard that Miltoun is going to ask Mrs. Noel to marry him. People are never mysterious, are they, without good reason? I wanted you to tell me—who is she?”
“I don't think I quite grasp the situation,” murmured Courtier. “You said—to marry him?”
Seeing that she had put out her hand, as if begging for the truth, he added: “How can your brother marry her—she's married!”
“Oh!”
“I'd no idea you didn't know that much.”
“We thought there was a divorce.”
The expression of which mention has been made—that peculiar white-hot sardonically jolly look—visited Courtier's face at once. “Hoist with their own petard! The usual thing. Let a pretty woman live alone—the tongues of men will do the rest.”
“It was not so bad as that,” said Barbara dryly; “they said she had divorced her husband.”
Caught out thus characteristically riding past the hounds Courtier bit his lips.