CHAPTER III
“ICH LIEBE DICH”
To her surprise Claudia found that the assembled company included her father and mother-in-law. Mrs. Rivington’s set was absolutely antipodal to Lady Currey’s, but as the General was an old friend of Sir John’s Lady Currey occasionally and stiffly countenanced the wife. Since her marriage, the intercourse between Claudia and Gilbert’s family had been of the most formal description, for Lady Currey found nothing to like in Claudia, and her daughter-in-law realized that she was taken on sufferance.
“So I shall not see my dear son to-night,” said the elder woman, as she presented a frosty cheek for Claudia to kiss. “It is a disappointment.” She looked with sideways disapproval at Claudia’s toilette. “As showy as her mother,” was her mental comment.
“You knew he was expected? He telephoned me at the last minute that he was detained at his chambers.”
Lady Currey’s eyebrows were of the fixture kind that cannot really be raised, only crumpled. She crumpled them now.
“Ah! I remember when I was young no woman thought of going out without her husband. If John did not care to go to a function I stayed away. When he had that fall from his horse I never took a meal outside the house for five months.”
Claudia would have explained to anyone else that her hostess had insisted on her presence, and thus have soothed down old-fashioned prejudices, but Lady Currey’s tone annoyed her.
“Oh!” she said carelessly, “women are neither treated as children nor inmates of a harem nowadays. We have progressed, you know. Women are freeing themselves. Did you never revolt in your heart of hearts?”