Mrs. Hawley was a woman who dearly loved society, and always had a long list of engagements—one who had it in her power to be so charming could not fail to be a welcome guest wherever she went—consequently, it was perfectly natural that she should wish her friend to participate in her enjoyment.
Mrs. Mencke at first faintly demurred upon the ground of being in mourning, but Mrs. Hawley, who did not believe in mourning anyway, easily overruled her scruples.
"What is the harm?" she questioned. "You cannot do Violet any good by secluding yourself, and no one here knows you well enough to gossip about you. It would be different, perhaps, if you were at home, where people have known you all your life."
So Mrs. Mencke, who liked gay life as well as any one, smothered her conscience, and, never doing things by halves, went everywhere.
It was at a reception given by the American Consul that she met Lord Cameron and his mother, Lady Isabel having been an intimate friend of the gentleman's family when her home was in New York.
Mrs. Mencke, ignoring entirely the barriers that had arisen between them at Mentone, appeared delighted to meet her "dear friends," but the greetings upon their part were decidedly cool, while Lady Cameron looked the reproaches she could not utter at Mrs. Mencke's gay manner and attire, and uttered a sigh of regret that the gentle girl, whom she had begun to love as a daughter, should so soon have been forgotten by her only relative.
"Are you in London for any length of time, Lady Cameron?" Mrs. Mencke inquired, secretly hoping that she might get an invitation to visit her at her town-house.
"Only for a week or two longer, as my son's affairs call him to his estate in Essex," was the somewhat formal reply.
"Indeed! and have you been in town long?"
"About a month."