‘Oh, ma chère, of course not. Dear Kingston is the best husband in the world. It is a pity, perhaps, he was not—well, a little more noceur before he married. That would make one feel so much more secure of him as a husband. One has to remember, you see, that marriage is not only a matter of—obvious things. It’s not a case of having a man, but of holding him. A woman should always have reserves and spices in her nature to keep her husband on the alert—ordinary women, I mean. But you are so brave. You are trying to run a ménage à trois on quite original lines——’
‘My dear Aunt Minna, there isn’t any need to give me so much good advice. I have no wish to interfere with my husband’s amusements.’
‘Not even to have any share in them? Now, that is so courageous. Of course you don’t seem able to amuse Kingston as much as Isabel can. I suppose you see that. He makes it plainer and plainer every day. Or perhaps you simply don’t care for the trouble, and so you give him a lively pretty creature to fill up the time with? So sweet of you. I only trust he won’t fill up the time so well that he won’t have any left for you. Men are so uncertain.’
This time Mrs. Mimburn had pierced Gundred’s armour. Her colour deepened. ‘I should think it a silly insult to have any doubts of my husband,’ she answered. ‘And—and—well, it’s not as if Isabel were very extraordinarily beautiful.’ She regretted the lapse as soon as she had committed it. But Minne-Adélaïde pounced mercilessly.
‘Let me tell you,’ she said, ‘if Isabel is not exactly beautiful, she is something much worse: elle est pire. She is fascinating. Now, mere prettiness is apt to get very fade and insipid after a time—the monotony of marriage, you know. And if there is anyone so attractive as Isabel anywhere near, a man is terribly ready to forget mere prettiness.’
‘Perhaps, but a gentleman does not forget his duty,’ answered Gundred, losing command of the situation for a moment.
Minne-Adélaïde pursued her advantages accordingly. ‘Oh, well,’ she laughed, ‘if one only wants to hold one’s husband by his duty! And even a gentleman—what else is he but a man, as soon as his clothes are off? And they do show the strangest forgetfulness at times. I could tell you stories.’
Gundred hated herself for permitting such a dialogue. Mrs. Mimburn seemed to have entrapped her.
‘Please don’t,’ she answered. ‘These things are not interesting.’
‘You see,’ went on Minne-Adélaïde, ‘if one lets one’s self slide out of a man’s life, one is encouraging him to forget one—and to remember other people, which is worse. Now you—of course one can’t always fill one’s husband’s life, one can’t always talk to him, can one? Between ourselves, now, one can’t always understand him. And she does, this cousin of yours. And that may be all right, or, again, it may be all wrong.’