"I like exercise."
"When you are tired? When you feel the heat so much? How very strange!"
And her Grace, who knew all about the Martha Sage affair, which had been much cackled of in the Enclosure, glowered heavily at her hostess, whom she, too, intended to cut at the end of the week, when the fate of the Lady Pearl had been finally decided for good or evil.
"Did you meet Lady Sage?" she pursued mercilessly, while Mr. Rodney endeavoured to look at ease, and succeeded in looking like a constitutionally timid person being led out to the stake.
"Oh yes," answered Mrs. Verulam, with an effort after indifference.
"Well?" remarked the Duchess, after a short and solemn pause.
"Well!" retorted Mrs. Verulam.
"Did you like her gown?" said the Duchess, getting a little confused, and becoming inept.
"I daresay it was all right, but personally I am not particularly fond of gimp and bugles, nor do I care specially for oak ornaments in the day-time," returned Mrs. Verulam, with veiled, but bitter, sarcasm.
"Oh! Still, in these hard times, it is a great saving of expense to be able to grow one's jewellery on one's own land," said the Duchess, turning away, and feeling that she was beginning to get the worst of it. She met the stare of her husband and blenched, suddenly remembering that she, too, though always so firmly innocent, had her troubles and was born to suffering. But she little knew what a terrible course those troubles were about to take, into what a maelstrom of unmerited misfortune she was about to plunge.