"Oh, something. Her old friend, Denise Blakeney, has had to cut her. Sir Cyril insisted. I heard that it was something about a pendant. Amos Benhusan told one or two people—you know, the big jeweller."
The chill deepened. Esmé was left alone at the fire, realizing suddenly that the women had drifted away from her. She looked at them curiously, turned to talk to a couple of men who came in, and forgot it. Something had put out the old Ploddy women, she decided carelessly.
But that evening, next day, Esmé began to realize people were avoiding her. She saw glances as she came into a room; she noticed the sudden hush which told her she was being discussed.
What was it? What could it be? The Holbrooks' party gave her no pleasure. For a time she tried to think it was jealousy, envy of her gowns, but Esmé was not small-minded; the thought had to be put away.
She sat up for Bertie one night, called him in from the small room off hers, where he slept.
"Bertie! these women are avoiding me," she flung out. "What is it? I've done nothing. They keep away from me—are almost rude; there's something, Bertie."
"Lord!" He sat down, staring at his wife. She looked haggard, worn; older than her years. He began to think. People had been curiously kind to him since he had come. He had been almost fêted by the men; they had "dear old chapped" him, asked him to play bridge and billiards, praised his shooting, offered to lend him horses, with a whispering undernote of pity in it all.
"Lord! It—must be nonsense, Butterfly," he said kindly, with something telling him that it was not. They had got wind, he thought, of Esmé's extravagance, and then he shook his head. What were debts to women who thought it smart to evade them, who paid exorbitant bills because they had been running too long to check them, who all wanted a little more than they had got?
"It must be nonsense," he said gruffly. "Scandal wouldn't offend them, even if you'd ever gone in for it. Want of money is nothing. Perhaps you've won a bit too much off 'em at bridge, or attracted someone's private man-property."
"I haven't," she said irritably. "Well, good-night."