Next moment the omniscient one was shaking hands with them, and wondering curiously what sort of a tête-á-tête he had interrupted. As the Duchess was so smiling and the Duke so obviously relieved, he concluded that he had broken up a row.
“Isn’t it too disgustingly provoking, this fuss about that tiresome affair!” the Duchess said, as soon as they had settled down. “These wretched cheap papers.”
“Oh, they must have a sensation,” Playford answered, politely sympathetic. “One comfort is that nobody believes half they read in them.”
No one could be better aware than Aubrey Playford of the falseness of that statement. No one knew better than he, a keen observer of his kind, that people are only too greedy to take in everything, without discount, that can be said or printed to their neighbour’s obloquy, or disadvantage, and more particularly when that neighbour happens to hold a high position. Under some conditions Playford would have been spiteful enough to say so, and indulge in a half-hour of moral vivisection; but that was not his cue nor his purpose to-day.
“It is altogether most provoking,” the Duchess declared. “What are they saying about it, Aubrey? I don’t mean the wretched papers, but at the clubs?”
Playford gave a shrug. “What do they ever say at the clubs beyond what some one tells them to say?” he replied, with a cynical contempt that, coming to him so easily, seemed a characteristic. “I haven’t heard much. Piersfield was full of it, as he would be, but more in the way of collecting than distributing, and, of course, little Roddy Arden was making the most of a new sensation. By the way, it was pretty well known yesterday among what I call the professionals, Dormer Greetland and his school, and they naturally made the most of their twenty-four hours’ start with the news.”
The Duke groaned. “All through a wretched footman. It is terrible to think how mean an instrument it takes to set the world agog and to bring us into unpleasant notoriety.”
“Oh, it is nothing,” said his visitor in a tone between sympathy and indifference. “I certainly should not worry about it if I were you. It won’t be even a nine days’ wonder. The Rullington case comes on next Monday; there will be some pretty disclosures for the mob in that, and I hear that Lady Rullington has her trunks ready packed, and is prepared to skip.”
The Duchess raised her eyebrows. “As bad as that? It is a pity that a presumably sensible woman as Maud Rullington was at one time should have such a vague idea as to where to draw the line.”
The Duke breathed heavily through his set teeth. “These liftings of the curtain for the benefit of the mob are very damaging and regrettable.”