“Are you sure it’s a rumour?” said her hostess, with a gleam of malice. “These girls are always entrapping rich young men, and I heard as a positive fact that the wedding took place at the registrar’s three weeks ago.”
“Nonsense. Jack amuses himself, but he wouldn’t do a thing like that. He’s an awful fool, but not such a fool as that.”
“Well,” replied Mrs. Rivington, dabbing at her nose with a powder-puff; “I hope it’s not true, for your sake. Fancy having a sister who calls herself ‘The Girlie Girl’! Too awful to contemplate, isn’t it? Thank goodness, I haven’t any children. I shouldn’t survive such a thing. I don’t believe in marrying out of your own class.” As the General had obviously married beneath him—it was rumoured that she had been employed as reception-clerk at an hotel—her scruples were understandable. “She figures on the hoardings in a sort of vivandière costume, and the men seem to admire her no end. But men always do admire such creatures. But really, Claudia, I am afraid it is true. My sewing-maid knows one of her maids, and this girl told Bertha in confidence that she went to the registrar’s with them, only nobody is to know at present. She heard all about the wedding-breakfast and the gallons of champagne and the flowers. These people live on champagne, I believe.”
Claudia, though a little startled, hardly credited the story. At one time she had been afraid that Jack would make some horrible mésalliance, but as the years had gone on and he had left the impressionable, callow stage behind him, she had ceased to feel any alarm. Jack was an ass, but he was a conventional ass. Once she hinted her fears to him, but he had taken the suggestion as such a deadly insult that she believed he realized the foolishness of such things. She remembered that he had proudly informed her that in the circle of “little ladies” he was nicknamed “The Knowing Kard,” and he gave her to understand that the nickname was not undeserved. Every now and then the family asked him when he was going to settle down and espouse some well-born, inexperienced girl, but Jack invariably said airily that there was lots of time, and that a really nice wife would hamper a fellow horribly, and a third party was always such a nuisance. It was exceedingly unlikely that there was any foundation for Mrs. Rivington’s piece of gossip. Claudia dismissed the idea with a laugh.
“Jack has a large heart, if somewhat shallow,” she said lightly. “I don’t think I’ll worry about his wedding-present.”
“Strange fascination these creatures have for men,” commented her hostess, glancing round to see that the other women were occupied. “Never can understand it myself. How a man can fall in love with powder—several inches thick—and grease paint beats me. But men are so easily taken in, aren’t they? and of course we should be too proud to use their arts.”
Claudia’s attention was wandering and her eyes were caught by a woman of about thirty-five, rather badly dressed, who did not seem to belong to the same galère as the other women. She was sitting apart, looking shy and a little uncomfortable. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her. Claudia wondered who she could be. She had fine, expressive eyes and a sensitive mouth, and she could have been much better-looking had she been more fashionably dressed. Mrs. Rivington noticed the direction of her eyes.
“I do wish Mrs. Milton would look smarter,” she said rather irritably. “I hate réchaufféd dresses, don’t you? But she’s got a beautiful voice, and I thought she would amuse us after dinner. She and her husband are as poor as church mice. She can’t get any engagements. Partly her dowdy dresses, I should think.”
“Do you mean you have engaged her for the evening?” asked Claudia.
“Heavens, no! I give her a dinner in return for some music. She wants to get known. It’s really doing her a kindness. I must go and talk to your mother-in-law now. She hates me, but I can see everyone else is tired of her. Where are you going?”