“Well, I should say there is something in it,” Sir Perrott Aspall declared. “I was talking to Dick Josselyn at the Club just now, and he tells me that Herriard is returning all his briefs.”
“Really?” exclaimed Lady Rotherfield, trying to gauge the significance of the last piece of news.
“That looks as though something were in the wind,” de Daun suggested.
“Yes,” put in Greetland. “Herriard wouldn’t accept a brief for poor Lady Ranower. She had set her heart upon retaining him for her appeal.” This was pure invention; but its author could not have it supposed that Sir Perrott’s announcement was news to him.
“I suppose it will be a quiet affair?” Lady Rotherfield was alluding to Alexia’s marriage, not to Lady Ranower’s appeal.
“I should hope so,” Greetland replied charitably. “Between ourselves, one can scarcely call the Countess quite re-established.”
“Ah, well,” observed Lady Rotherfield, still hedging, “a very suitable match. Mr. Herriard is quite a somebody.”
“Oh, yes,” said de Daun, who had taken recent opportunities of cultivating Herriard on the strength of his coming position in the world. “But why should he return his briefs, eh? Is that the fashion here when one is to be married?”
“Hardly,” laughed Sir Perrott. “Unless one is in a great hurry.”
“Ah, that is it, you may depend,” said Greetland. “It is coming off at once. By to-night I shall know all about it. A long honeymoon to wear out an attenuating scandal.”