"If she cared for the man, why not marry him?"
"Not much! She is a rich woman, and doesn't want a husband who would spend every shillin' in two or three years."
"Oh! but nowadays a woman can take care of her money. The law will protect her!"
"Not from a spendthrift that she's fond of. And nowadays the clever women have free and easy ideas of the marriage tie. They've been educated up to it by novels and newspapers. Well, it isn't a nice story, anyhow you look at it; but I thought it was friendly to call."
"So did I," said Mordaunt. "But I'm afraid she'd rather not have seen us. I hope she'll go to her place in the north, and cut the whole boiling."
"Not much left for her to cut, poor soul, if people have given her the cold shoulder."
"She can cut Mrs. Wilfred and her girls," said Mordaunt. "I should think she'd enjoy doing it."
Lady Perivale drove in the park three or four afternoons a week at the fashionable hour, when carriages had to move slowly, and mounted policemen were keeping the way clear for the passing of royal personages. Some of her women friends bowed to her coldly, and she returned the salute with the same distance. The men lounging by the railings were on the alert to acknowledge a bow from her; but she had a way of not seeing them that they could hardly call offensive. The more strait-laced among the women looked at her with unrecognizing eyes; and she gave them back the same blank stare. Young, very handsome, exquisitely dressed by the faiseuse at the top of the mode, and seated in a victoria whose every detail, from the blood horses to the men's gloves and collars, was perfection, she drove to and fro, knowing herself under a dark cloud of undeserved disgrace. Anger was her strongest feeling. Her heart beat fast, and her cheek flushed as she drove past those treacherous women whom she had called friends. She had not cultivated sentimental friendships in the fashionable world. She had no alter ego, no bosom friend, in society. But she had liked people, and had believed they liked her; and it was difficult to think they could insult her by giving credence to such a preposterous story as some idiots had set on foot.
She sought no society, sent out no invitations to the intimates of old, the girls who had made her little court of adorers, her Queen's Maries, whose hats and gloves had so often figured in her milliner's bills, since if a nice girl were assisting at her own choice of head-gear, and cast longing looks upon some sparkling vision of roses and leghorn, or ostrich feathers and spangled lace, what more natural than to insist upon buying the things for her, in spite of all protests. She had scattered such gifts with lavish hands, forgetting all about them till surprised by the total of her milliner's bill.