Mrs. Allestree dropped her knitting and held up both hands. “Heaven knows, not I!” she replied; “of course she can’t be in the fashion unless she marries again.”
“But to marry Fox! That will create a perfect furore. Did you know he’s been offered the portfolio of State?”
A quiver of excitement passed over Mrs. Allestree’s pale face. “Actually—or only metaphorically, Martha?”
“Actually, to-day—I had it from two Cabinet officers.”
Mrs. Allestree’s hands fell on her knitting, and she sat looking into the fire. What a nightmare of a complication! To marry Margaret would ruin him, yet not to marry her—
“It isn’t generally known yet that he may marry Margaret; if he does—” Mrs. O’Neal held up her hands this time, and her plumes trembled.
“I don’t know anything about it, Martha,” Mrs. Allestree said judiciously.
Martha O’Neal looked at her shrewdly and smiled, but she changed the subject as she gathered up her furs again preparatory to departure. “Lily Osborne is reported to have made twenty thousand at bridge at the Hot Springs,” she observed casually; “I wish I didn’t entertain an awful doubt of her integrity.”
Mrs. Allestree looked up weakly. “You can’t mean she cheats at cards?”
Mrs. O’Neal laughed. “She’d be caught at that, my dear, and ostracized. She only happens to know who to fleece, you can see how rich she grows.”