"Had you been a few moments earlier, you would have found him holding forth about Charley Cleveland. And he said my mother went to him in the City today to put him up to it."
"Oh, if you mean about Charley Cleveland, I was going to speak to you of it myself. You are getting quite absurd about him, Adela. Or he is about you. It was said at Brookes's the other day that Charley Cleveland was losing his head for Lady Adela Grubb."
Lady Adela laughed. "Who said it, Gracie?"
"Oh, I don't know; a lot of them were together. Captain Foster, and John Cust, and Lord Deerham, and Booby Charteris, and others. It seems Charley was a little overcome the previous evening. He and his brother had been dining with the Guards, very freely, and afterwards they went to—I forget the place—somewhere that young men go to of an evening, and Charley finished himself up with brandy and cigars; and then he managed to hiccup out, that the only angel living upon earth was Lady Adela Grubb."
"And that's all!" she said lightly—"that Charley called me an angel! I told him it was a mare's-nest."
"No; it is not all," quickly answered Lady Grace. "It might be all, if it were not for your folly. I have seen Charley hold your hand in his; I have seen him kiss it; I have seen him bend forward and whisper to you until his hair has all but touched yours. It is very bad, Adela."
"It is very amusing; it serves to pass away the time," laughed Adela. "And, pray, Grace, how came you to know so much of what they say and do at their clubs?"
"That's one of the annoying parts of it. Colonel Hope heard it; he was present. He went home, shocked and scared, to tell Sarah; and Sarah came yesterday morning and told mamma."
"Shocked and scared too? I should like to have seen Sarah's long face!"
"You should have seen mamma's. No wonder she went down to your husband. But that is not all yet, Adela. One of them, I think it was Lord Deerham—whoever it was, had dined here a night or two before—told the others that you flirted with Charley desperately before your husband's eyes, and that while you showed favour to one you snubbed the other."