Lady Wereminster put up her lorgnette and looked round Evelyn's cheerful little sitting-room at Bramley with intense dissatisfaction.
"Comfortable in its way, yes. But, my dear child, why on earth should you come to such a dull place in the height of the season? You must have had some reason for it. Illness, economy? You are not a woman of moods to do things purposelessly or in a temper. And to go away and leave no address too! I tell you every one's talking about it. The charm of the country indeed! The world won't swallow that. It only looks upon the country as a means of wearing a different set of smart clothes, that's all. And you yourself have always waited until August to go to the country until now.
"I wish you were not so reserved, Evelyn. You've made enemies, you know; women like you always do. You know they say that in a successful play an audience has to be taken into the author's confidence from the first act. Well, the world's like an audience, and wants to know one's secrets too. (It'll betray them at the first opportunity, but no matter.) It doesn't understand you. It calls itself Christian, but it sees Christian principles so seldom that when it comes across them it suspects their probity at once. When it meets a person who helps others for the sheer love of giving help, like you, it says, 'Hallo, there's something behind this; I must set to work at once and rout it out!' And on it switches its most powerful flashlight of envy and malice.
"Don't contradict me, my dear. When I was young I believed I knew better than any one else, and now I'm sure of it. If I hadn't learnt something of life by seventy-five, I should be a fool. You're quixotic, and quixotry is out of date. Now-a-days we only take trouble because we want to get on, to fill our pockets, or be advertised. Politics—art—we try to excel in these because it will make people talk of us. As for charity——! In nine cases out of ten charity is the refuge of the uncharitable—the means by which elderly spinsters and widows of no social importance foist themselves on the notice of a public which would never have heard of them under any other circumstances, and delude themselves in the belief that they are personages."
"I wish you'd have some lunch or something," said Evelyn blankly; "you'd feel ever so much better then."
Lady Wereminster chuckled.
"A polite way of stopping my tongue, eh? But what I've said is for your good, Evelyn, as unpleasant things always are in the view of the person who says them. Every one's discussing this sudden flight of yours, and the world can't talk about anything long without saying something scandalous. And we all miss you so! Creagh's depressed, Wereminster's so irritable that I can hardly face him at meal-times, and as for Dora Beadon, she's more odious than ever."
"You dear old impostor, I've only been away a week!"
"A week, my dear—a day's enough to start a sensation in London, if it's properly spread. You see, try as you will, you can't escape being a personality. You're known, and you're watched. Must I speak plainer? Well, then—when it happens that the motor of a very notorious personage has been waiting outside your house day after day for six weeks or more, and the visits suddenly cease and you run away into the country, the world scents out a quarrel, and begins agitating itself as to the meaning of it all."
"I care very little for the world's opinion," said Evelyn.