When he had gone Lady Holme sat down and wrote two notes. One was to Lady Brayley and was charmingly apologetic, saying that the confusion was entirely owing to Fritz’s muddle-headedness, and that she was in despair at her misfortune—which was almost literally true. The other was to Sir Donald Ulford, begging him to join them in their box on the first, and asking whether it was possible to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Leo Ulford to come with him. If he thought so she would go at once and leave cards on Mrs. Ulford, whom she was longing to know.
Both notes went off by hand before lunch.
CHAPTER X
THE Ulfords accepted for the first. Lady Holme left cards on Mrs. Leo and told her husband that the box was filled up. He received the information with indifference. So long as his wife was there to please Miss Schley, and Mr. Laycock to “give her a hand and show ‘em all whether she was popular,” he was satisfied. Having gained his point, he was once again in excellent humour. Possibly Lady Holme would have appreciated his large gaieties more if she had not divined their cause. But she expressed no dissatisfaction with them, and indeed increased them by her own brilliant serenity during the days that intervened between the Martha Brayley incident and the first night.
Lord Holme had no suspicion that during these days she was inwardly debating whether she would go to the theatre or not.
It would be very easy to be unwell. She was going out incessantly and could be over-fatigued. She could have woman’s great stand-by in moments of crisis—a bad attack of neuralgia. It was the simplest matter in the world. The only question was—all things considered, was it worth while? By “all things considered” she meant Leo Ulford. The touch of Fritz in him made him a valuable ally at this moment. Fritz and Miss Schley were not going to have things quite all their own way. And then Mrs. Leo! She would put Fritz next the ear-trumpet. She had enough sense of humour to smile to herself at the thought of him there. On the whole, she fancied the neuralgia would not attack her at the critical instant.
Only when she thought of what her husband had said about the American’s desire for her presence did she hesitate again. Her suspicions were aroused. Miss Schley was not anxious that she should be conspicuously in the theatre merely because she was the smartest woman in London. That was certain. Besides, she was not the smartest woman in London. She was far too well-born to be that in these great days of the demi-mondaine. She remembered Robin Pierce’s warning at the Arkell House ball—“Consider yourselves enemies for no reasons or secret woman’s reasons. It’s safer.”
When do women want the bulky, solid reasons obtusely demanded by men before they can be enemies? Where man insists on an insult, a blow, they will be satisfied with a look—perhaps not even at them but only at the skirt of their gown—with a turn of the head, with nothing at all. For what a man calls nothing can be the world and all that there is in it to a woman. Lady Holme knew that she and the American had been enemies since the moment when the latter had moved with the tiny steps that so oddly caricatured her own individual walk down the stairs at the Carlton. She wanted no tiresome reasons; nor did Miss Schley. Robin was right, of course. He understood women. But then—?
Should she go to the theatre?