"No, she won't shrink—provided the reward is good enough. She is prepared to tell the truth—and—shame the devil—for two hundred pounds."
"Give her ten times as much if she wants it!" cried Lady Perivale. "But what are we to do if nobody libels me? Messrs. Rosset have sent me two or three newspaper paragraphs. They are very insolent, but I'm afraid one could hardly go to law about them."
At Faunce's request she produced the impertinent snippets, pasted on flimsy green paper.
From the Morning Intelligencer: "Lady Perivale, whose small dinners and suppers after the opera were so popular last season, has not done any entertaining this year. She is living in her house in Grosvenor Square, but is spending the summer in strict retirement. She may be seen in the morning riding with the 'liver brigade,' and she occasionally takes an afternoon drive in the Park; but she has joined in none of the season's festivities—a fact that has caused some gossip in the inner circles of the smart world."
From Miranda's "Crême de la Crême," in the Hesperus: "Among the beauties at Lady Morningside's ball, Lady Perivale was conspicuous by her absence, although last season she was so prominent a personage in the Morningside set. What can be the cause of this self-effacement on the part of a young and wealthy widow who had the ball of fashion at her feet last year?"
There were other paragraphs of the same calibre.
"You are right, Lady Perivale," Faunce said, after having gravely read them. "These are not good enough. We must wait for something better."
"And you think that somebody will libel me?"
"I am—almost—sure that you will be called upon to punish some very gross libel within the next few weeks."
"Then I hope I shall have the pleasure of horsewhipping the writer, and the editor who publishes it!" said Haldane, hotly.