“Let us eat first and talk afterward,” she said, hurriedly. “We’ll be happy for a while, anyway.”
And she went on to be happy, in her nervous and eager way. She talked about the new opera which was to be given, and about Mrs. de Graffenried’s new entertainment, and about Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden’s ball; also about the hospital for crippled children which she wanted to build, and about Mrs. Vivie Patton’s rumoured divorce. And, meantime, the sphinx-like attendants moved here and there, and the dinner came and went. They took their coffee in the big chairs by the fire; and the table was swept clear, and the servants vanished, closing the doors behind them.
Then Montague set his cup aside, and sat gazing sombrely into the fire. And Mrs. Winnie watched him. There was a long silence.
Suddenly he heard her voice. “Do you find it so easy to give up our friendship?” she asked.
“I didn’t think about it’s being easy or hard,” he answered. “I simply thought of protecting you.”
“And do you think that my friends are nothing to me?” she demanded. “Have I so very many as that?” And she clenched her hands with a sudden passionate gesture. “Do you think that I will let those wretches frighten me into doing what they want? I’ll not give in to them—not for anything that Lelia can do!”
A look of perplexity crossed Montague’s face. “Lelia?” he asked.
“Mrs. Robbie Walling!” she cried. “Don’t you suppose that she is responsible for that paragraph?”
Montague started.
“That’s the way they fight their battles!” cried Mrs. Winnie. “They pay money to those scoundrels to be protected. And then they send nasty gossip about people they wish to injure.”