“Helen has been telling me a good deal about this Mrs. Dakin,” she began.
Her tone suggested that further confidences might be expected from Mrs. Dakin’s friend, and Mrs. Carfax sat upright in her chair, and leant forward a little.
“Oh, but if Mrs. Carfax is a friend——” objected Madame Didier.
“Well, dear, so are you,” put in Mrs. Lovell, who, as Mrs. Carfax suddenly decided, was really quite stupid.
Madame Didier’s offended expression might portend anything—even silence.
Innocent of psychology, Mrs. Carfax could not be expected to know that on this score, at least, she need have no apprehension.
“Of course I am Madge’s friend,” said Madame Didier, stitching very fast, “and that’s why I am so distressed at her foolish behaviour.”
“What has she——?” Mrs. Carfax paused. It was perhaps safer not to interrupt.
“Oh only that she rather annoyed me by flirting outrageously with a man who sometimes comes to our house. A man I don’t like. But he’s a friend of Louis’s, and so I have to put up with him. A Monsieur Fontenelle.”
“Why, I met him last spring, at a dinner-party!” interrupted Mrs. Carfax in surprise.