Susan went down the irregular flight of stairs. The Duchess was waiting in her room for a word.
"Good morning, my child," she said. "Your husband has very properly come to fetch you. I should advise you to let him off lightly about last night."
The maid had gone out of the room.
"About——?" faltered Susan.
"Philandering with Julia. I believe in severity, of course," said the Duchess bluntly, "but as a matter of fact Kitty and I have been at him like early birds. Told him what we thought of him, and so forth. Don't look so sorry. It's done him good, and you can descend upon him like a forgiving saint."
"I have nothing to forgive him," the girl protested. "Oh, I wish you would not say that."
The Duchess smiled benevolently at her stammering haste. She fancied she understood.
"I quite forgot," she said, "to ask after that idiot upstairs. There's a woman who tried to enrage her husband into paying her more attention by making herself conspicuous with another man. Bad policy, my child. It makes the man think less of her, though it may alarm his possessive instinct;—and, of course, if anybody stole your old coat you'd feel inclined to knock him down:—but that wouldn't make you believe it was as good as new. No, no, it's a fallacious notion. However, we're talking of this person. I'd be sorry for her feelings if I didn't think the shock of being stopped on the brink would bring her to her senses. We are very good-natured among ourselves, but she wouldn't find it easy to live it down. She isn't one of us."
She smiled encouragingly at the girl, who was wrapped in her own dressing-gown, a thick masculine garment that sat oddly on her slimness.
"People think," she said, "that we hunting people are a lawless band. They think they can come and do as they like in Melton. Just because we have a sporting sense of loyalty to each other, and stick to our friends when they need us. If you or Barnaby, for example, did anything outrageous, we'd scold you a little and let it drop. But we don't do it with an outsider.... He's brought your habit. Get into your things, my dear."