"No! Then whom did you suppose Mrs. Lake was?"
"I did not suppose anything about it; I did not know she was Mrs. Lake. Have they been married long?"
"About three years."
"Ah, yes; I think he said so. Any children?"
"There was one. A beautiful little child; but it died. Do you not think her very lovely? It is so sweet a face!"
Lady Ellis shrugged her shoulders. "She has no style. And she seems as much wrapt up in her husband as though they had been married yesterday."
"Why should she not be?" bluntly asked Miss Jupp. "I only hope when I am married--if ever that's to be--that I and my husband shall be as happy and united as they are."
"As she is," spoke Lady Ellis. "I would not answer for him."
Mary Jupp felt cross. It occurred to her that somebody might have been whispering tales about Mr. Lake's nonsensical flirtation with her sister Rose: and purely innocent nonsense, on both sides, she knew that to be. "Young Lake is one of those men who cannot live without flirtation," she observed, "who admire every woman they meet, and take care to let her know it. His wife can afford to laugh at it, knowing that his love is exclusively hers."
Lady Ellis drew down the corners of her mouth and coughed a little cough of mocking disbelief; for which Mary Jupp, upright and high-principled, could have scolded her for an hour.