“Why not?” asked Rose, almost sharply.
“So pretty. So well dressed. Curious what a man can do, isn’t it? No wonder they’re vain.” Lady Wilmot smiled broadly as she raised a superfluously buttered muffin to her lips.
“What man?” asked Rose, brusquely.
“Mayne, my dear; Dick Mayne, The Uncommercial Traveller, or Patience Rewarded. It would make a nice little modern tract. But the result is admirable as far as Cecily is concerned. I saw her about eighteen months ago. She came up to a lunch-party with Robert. She was positively dowdy, and like the lady—who was it?—who had no more spirit in her. Never saw such a collapse in my life, and every one agreed with me. But now! As pretty as ever—prettier. There’s something different about her, too. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s a touch of dignity about my lady. No, it’s more than that. It’s something a little sphinx-like. Anyhow, it’s a most effective pose. Every one’s talking, of course; but, as I tell them, when the result is so admirable why inquire too closely about the means?” She chuckled a little. Rose looked at her calmly.
“Every one’s talking?” she said. “That means what you so aptly describe as ‘this sort of thing.’” She let her eyes wander round the room, which was now filled with chattering women. “Does it matter? Cecily’s friends know as well as you do that what you insinuate is a—is not true.”
Lady Wilmot’s expression wavered. She had crossed swords with Rose Summers before, and always found the exercise a little exhausting. Reluctantly she determined to be amicable, so with a laugh she shrugged her shoulders. “Of course, my dear. What a literal mind you have! You know Robert’s got a secretary?” she added, with apparent innocence.
“So I hear. Philippa Burton,” returned Rose, with composure.
Lady Wilmot’s eyes lit up. “Do you know her?”
“I met her long ago in Germany. She was a school-fellow of Cecily’s. I dare say you know that.”
There was a pause. Lady Wilmot determined on a new move.