“It will be very kind of you,”—she answered quietly.
“Shall I see you if I come?” I said in a lower tone.
“If you wish it,—certainly!”
Our eyes met; and I knew by instinct that she read my thoughts. I pressed her hand again and was not repulsed,—then bowing profoundly, I left her to make my adieux to Lord Elton and Miss Chesney, who seemed terribly upset and frightened. Miss Charlotte Fitzroy had left the room in attendance on her sister, and she did not return to bid us good-night. Rimânez lingered a moment behind me to say [p 162] another word or two to the Earl, and when he joined me in the hall and threw on his opera-coat, he was smiling to himself somewhat singularly.
“An unpleasant end for Helena, Countess of Elton”—he said, when we were in our brougham, driving away—“Paralysis is perhaps the worst of all the physical punishments that can befall a ‘rapid’ lady.”
“Was she ‘rapid’?”
“Well,—perhaps ‘rapid’ is too mild a term, but I can find no other;”—he answered—“When she was young,—she is barely fifty now,—she did everything that could be done by woman at her worst and wildest. She had scores of lovers,—and I believe one of them cleared off her husband’s turf-debts,—the Earl consenting gladly,—on a rather pressing occasion.”
“What disgraceful conduct!” I exclaimed.
He looked at me with an expression of cynical amusement.
“Think so? The ‘upper ten’ quite condone that sort of thing in their own set now-a-days. It is all right. If a lady has lovers, and her husband beams benevolence on the situation what can be said? Nothing. How very tender your conscience is, Geoffrey!”