"Oh! I suppose it's too melodramatic to think of," Denise said, getting up. "It's still pouring, and I'm going home. We have people to dinner to-night. Cheer up, dear."
She left Esmé sitting brooding alone; she had been so happy with her husband; there was just enough—enough for amusement, for entertaining mildly, for paying visits. Her pretty face won many friends; people were kind to so pleasant a guest.
"Oh! I can't afford it! I'd love to go!" and then someone found an outsider at ten to one, or a stock which was safe to rise, and someone else sent wine at wholesale prices; someone else fruit and flowers. They were such a merry pair; they ought to enjoy themselves, was the world's verdict.
Esmé knew the value of smiles; in shops, in Society they were current coinage to her. She did not want to be tied, to have to weary over a something more important than she was.
"If we could only change," said Esmé, dolefully. "Denise quite sees how it will spoil everything."
"Call a taxi, Marie. I'll go to the club to tea."
Denise went to pay some calls, and then to her house in Grosvenor Square. The scent of flowers drifted from the hall; she loved to fill it with anything sweet. The butler handed her her letters as she passed—invitations, notes.
She went into her boudoir at the back of the drawing-room, a nest of blue, background for her fair beauty, with flowers everywhere.
Denise shivered; she was a Someone—a well-known hostess in society; a personage in her way; she went to dull house-parties, where royalty was entertained; and she yawned sorely but yet was glad to go. Where one ate simple food and had to smoke in the conservatories, because a very great lady was an advocate for simplicity.
"And if—if—" her fears were not unfounded.