"Now we know who footed the bill," said Cynthia Charterhouse in dove-like accents. While Trixie murmured in the vexed ear of Margot:
"Kitts, my dinkie, you are a pal of the Saxhams. How far had the affair really gone?"
"There was no affair!" said Margot's sweet little voice, very clearly. "Pat rather hated Count von Herrnung than otherwise!"
"Judging by the mute evidence of her hair—" began Mrs. Charterhouse, languidly. How Margot loathed these women, erstwhile her chosen friends and associates, tearing with greedy beaks and vicious claws at the reputation of an unmarried girl....
"Her hair belongs to her! She can bleach it if she wishes!" The little figure rose to its altitude of four feet seven inches and surveyed the scandalmongers with wrathful eyes. "I have said that there was nothing between Miss Saxham and Count von Herrnung"—the little voice was crystal-cold: "I should be extremely obliged to all of you if you will understand this clearly! Miss Saxham is engaged to my husband's cousin, Alan Sherbrand."—Had Franky heard that stately reference to my husband, he would have been "bowled," to quote himself. "Franky likes him, and so do I, tremendously! We're both keen on their bringing off the match!"
There was another resounding silence. Brayham snored melodiously. Then Trixie Wastwood said with her Pierrot smile:
"Really, Kitts, it was—hardly cricket not to have warned us!"
While Mrs. Charterhouse added in tones of iced velvet:
"Regard me also as prone beneath Miss Saxham's Number Eight shoes. Did you say her fiancé was a cousin of Lord Norwater's? Not possibly the son of the uncle who died quite recently? Captain the Hon. Noel Sherbrand, late of the Royal Gunners.... My husband used to know him before—people left off!"
"It is the same. He muddled his career somehow, and—most people cut him! But he is dead," said Margot very deliberately, "and his son, if we have no—" the delicate cheeks flushed with sudden vivid crimson—"his son is perfectly tophole and Franky's next heir. We met him in June in Paris, and so did Pat Saxham! How do any of you know she didn't tint her hair to please him."