Lady Seaton had but recently come up to the peace of the house on the ridge from one of the great hotels below, where there was too much crowding and racket for her. She was fairly well read and interested in many things, and had shown much friendliness, mixed with something that was almost deference, to Ermengarde. In the course of half an hour's desultory chat in the garden she had become acquainted with all the leading facts in Mrs. Allonby's life; Charlie's name, age, school, disposition, and beauty; the busy journalist husband; the attack of influenza; the subsequent depression, and present holiday trip; while Ermengarde had had a vague notion that they had been discussing the climate and topography of the Riviera, and Lady Seaton's own health, all the time.
"You must be very proud of your husband, Mrs. Allonby," she said, when they were parting on that occasion, and Ermengarde made some vague and wondering assent to the assumption.
A husband is a not unusual piece of personal property; why on earth be proud of it? Still, she was not going to let people think she was ashamed of poor old Arthur, who, with all his faults, was probably no worse than other men—besides, even if he were ever so bad, he was her man, and she must stand up for him. "A poor thing, sirs, but mine own."
Since Lady Seaton's arrival Ermengarde had been dimly conscious of a difference in people's manner to her, as if that of the kind-hearted old lady had been infectious, or her avowed interest had conferred some distinction upon her.
Once, when she had tucked herself up cosily in a nook behind a rose-trellis and fallen asleep in the sunshine, she had been waked by a murmur of voices from people on the other side of her trellis, and heard in the adored treble shout of the Boundrish, "Well! I simply call it scandalous. I wonder the Bontemps put up with it. Such goings on are a reflection upon us all."
"You need have no fear, Miss Boundrish," replied Lady Seaton's low, distinct voice, in which Ermengarde detected a subtle hint of sarcasm, "you are quite beyond any such reflection."
"Well, I don't know about that," she replied with complacent gurgles. "One doesn't care to associate with people who get themselves talked about. An inherited instinct, I suppose," with more gurgles. "Besides, how do you know who she is, or whether she has a husband at all? Grass-widows who run about the Continent alone, and play at Monty to that extent that they have to pop their jewels——"
Ermengarde smiled at this. "After all, I'm not the only one who pops jewels here," she thought; "but who on earth can the Boundrish be going for now?"
"—Why, I saw her go in myself, and she thought I didn't know her under her black gossamer, and I saw the things in the window afterwards——"
"You were there, too?" the thin man interjected, with a greenish glitter in his eye.