She turned away composedly to meet another guest.
Francis Braybrooke began to talk to Lady Sellingworth, and almost immediately Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Birchington joined them.
“How marvellous you look, Adela!” said Lady Wrackley, staring with her birdlike eyes. “You will cut us all out. I must go to Geneva. Have you heard about Beryl? But of course you have. She was so delighted at coming into a fortune that she rushed away to Rose Tree Gardens to celebrate the event with a man without even waiting till she had got her mourning. Didn’t she, Minnie?”
Francis Braybrooke was looking shocked.
“I cannot believe that Miss Van Tuyn—” he began.
But Mrs. Birchington interrupted him.
“But I was there!” she said.
“I beg your pardon!” said Braybrooke.
“It was the very day the death of her father was in the evening papers. I came back from the club with the paper in my hand, and met Beryl Van Tuyn getting out of the lift in Rose Tree Gardens with the man who lives opposite to me. She absolutely looked embarrassed.”
“Impossible!” said Lady Wrackley. “She couldn’t!”