Margaret shrugged her shoulders again. “One hears everything, you know!” she said, with a dangerous smile.
Mrs. Wingfield breathed hard and opened her lips, but Mrs. Vermilion was a wiser if a duller woman; she laid a restraining hand on her arm and propelled her gently but firmly toward the exit.
“You’re coming to my ball next week, Mrs. White?” she ventured with a propitiating smile.
“Oh, is it next week?” drawled Margaret, with elevated brows, “I never know. Little Miss English keeps my books; if she didn’t I should go to the wrong place every night and forget the White House.”
“I thought your memory more accommodating,” Mrs. Wingfield retaliated pointedly; “I remember when you forgot to come to my dinner after you’d accepted.”
Margaret laughed. “Did I?” she said, “I’m evidently a sinner. Tell Mr. Wingfield that I heard who wrote in those corrections in that paragraph of the message—but I really can’t tell.”
Mrs. Wingfield turned away with a red cheek.
“Margaret!” remonstrated Allestree sharply, as the three women withdrew, “how can you? Good Lord, talk about the brutality of men! Women are Malays and North American Indians—you have no mercy! I’m blushing all over now at the thought of it!”
She laughed, her short, even white teeth set close together, her eyes sparkling. “Wasn’t I horrid?” she said, “I haven’t any manners and they hate me.”
“I should think they would!” he replied warmly, “Margaret, why do you do such things? It isn’t like you, it isn’t—”