“Nelly, don’t be so hard-hearted,” her mother would say, with piteous looks.
Thus Frederick was generally successful in his gloom—at least among the feminine half of society. He came in behind Amanda’s train, which he looked at with disgust, as it curled about his foot. Nevertheless he was pleased to see that his gorgeous wife made an impression on the old fogies who sat by his mother’s side—Sir Timothy and Lady Doul.
“I am pretty well, thank you,” said Amanda, “as well as it is possible to be in London at this time of the year; when all one’s friends are gone, and when the place is full of outlandish country-looking people, or strange fishes from abroad, it is such a bore to stay in London. You don’t feel it out here in the suburbs—you have your little society of your own, which pays no attention to the season. I am sure I wish I was as well off.”
“Dear me!” said old Lady Doul, with the admiration and wonder of ignorance. “I think London is always so exciting. I could not bear too much of it. Sir Timothy and I were just saying what a racket it was. To be sure we are living in Half-Moon Street, in the centre of everything,” the old lady added with simple pride. Her cap had been made in Barbadoes, and so had her gown; she had not been “in town” for more than twenty years.
Amanda gave her a stare in passing. She was never civil to women.
“I should think you would find the desert lively if you think Half-Moon Street exciting,” she said. “Give me a nice country house choke full of people, with luncheons at the cover-side, and dances in the evening, and all sorts of fun going on. But when one marries a poor clerk in a public office, one has to put up with many things,” she went on, turning to old Sir Timothy, who, startled and embarrassed, did not know what to reply.
“Oh, ah, oh, of course,” said the old man; “very good—very good. Everybody suffers from a penurious government. I assure you, my dear young lady, the fine young fellows one meets out in the world—attachés, and such like—wasting their time, as I always tell them, upon twopence-halfpenny a year. Why, I had a secretary once, a young man of excellent family——”
“But I hope you did not allow him to marry,” said Amanda. “It is always upon the wives that the hardship falls. If you saw the little hole of a place we have to live in—and back to London in October—only fancy! I wonder what we are supposed to be made of. The men are much better off with their clubs, and that sort of thing. They know at least all that is going on; they hear the gossip, and see every stray creature there is to see; but as for us, poor ladies——”
“Tell me how far you went in Switzerland, Amanda,” said Nelly. “You must have enjoyed that. We have only been once among the mountains; but what a pleasure it was!—did you go to——? But I remember Frederick wrote you had changed your minds——”
Nelly spoke with the artificiality of a made-up digression, and Sir Timothy thought her but a poor little shadowy thing by the side of her beautiful sister-in-law.