One day, at a tea, a certain lady, animadverted strongly upon Lady Holme’s conduct, and finally remarked:
“It’s grotesque! A woman who is disfigured, and a man who is, or at any rate was, a drunkard! Really it’s the most disgusting thing I ever heard of!”
Lady Cardington happened to be in the room and she suddenly flushed.
“I don’t think we know very much about it,” she said, and her voice was rather louder than usual.
“But Lord Holme is going to—” began the lady who had been speaking.
“He may be, and he may succeed. But my sympathies are not with him. He left his wife when she needed him.”
“But what could he have done for her?”
“He could have loved her,” said Lady Cardington.
The flush glowed hotter in the face that was generally as white as ivory.
There was a moment of silence in the room. Then Lady Cardington, getting up to go, added: