"Perhaps not," she mused, then with more animation. "Come, Wallace, tell me exactly how she impresses you."
"That is easy," he replied. "She is one of the prettiest women I ever saw in my life."
"Ah, of course," in annoyance, "but I didn't mean that. That is no impression of character."
"Mm," he pondered. "It isn't much of one, no."
Alice leaned back in her chair. "I seem to discern depths in her that the rest of you refuse to see. You stop at her beauty and are content with never a peep beneath the surface."
Martin tossed his cigarette over the railing into the garden. "Frankly, I think that you are searching for something that isn't there," he said abruptly. "The gods never bestow all their gifts on one person. Since you profess to know your own self so well you should realize that women so very pretty as Mrs. Hepworth are rarely clever. Why should they be? It is enough of an excuse for existence that they are beautiful."
"It is indeed," growled Hewston, who had been absorbed in sulky meditation for some time. "I'd be contented if I thought she had enough head on her shoulders to keep straight and not involve good old Hepworth in God knows what."
Wallace laughed. "I'll lay you a wager, Mrs. Wilstead," he whispered, tapping her fan with his finger-tips, "that the way things are going now there will be a split in the Hepworth household within three months."
"Do not say it," she cried quickly. "I can not bear to think of such a thing."
"I'll give you heavy odds, too," he went on cynically, leaning forward to regard the group at the piano. "I'll make it a bracelet against a box of cigars, provided I'm allowed to choose the brand of cigars."