"His Colonel's second wife," put in Lady Susan. "Isn't it always the elderly Colonel's second wife?"
Lady Okehampton gave another sigh.
"It was a disgraceful story," she murmured. "Let us try to forget all about it."
Vera had flushed and paled while they were talking.
"But tell me about it, Aunt Mildred," she said, with a kind of angry eagerness. "Where was the disgrace, more than in all such cases? A wicked woman, a foolish young man—very young, wasn't he?"
"Not five and twenty."
"Where was the disgrace?"
"Don't excite yourself, child. Duplicity—an old man's heart broken—Isn't that enough? An elopement or not an elopement; something horrid that happened after a regimental ball. I know nothing of the details, for it all took place while the regiment was in India, which only shows that Kipling's stories are true to life. The husband would not divorce her—which was a blessing—or Claude would have had to marry her. He spoilt his career by the intrigue; but marriage would have been worse."
Vera's heart was beating violently when Claude sauntered into the room presently, and made his leisurely way to the sofa where she was sitting aloof from the other two, who had just entered upon an animated discussion of the last fashionable nerve-specialist and his methods.
"What has made you so pale?" Claude asked, as he seated himself by Vera's side. "Was our walk through the streets too much for you? I should never forgive myself if——"