“Nor do it,” said Mrs. Herbert. “I hate doing things.”
“Still it is necessary for someone to take notice of Miss Archer’s behaviour, now that she is engaged to Mr. Wainbridge.”
“They do not talk of being married,” said Lily, with a laugh.
Lady Blake was having tea with her, it was hot and June. They were both dressed in crepon and muslin. Lady Blake’s hat was a flower garden.
Mrs. Herbert looked bored. The heat was excessive, and she was weary.
Jack wrote to her occasionally, but he did not return, and she was tired of Sir Ralph. Other people were also afflicted in the same way, and Mrs. Herbert was often left out where before she had been first.
Women said her first husband had been an angel, and died to continue one, and her second went to Cairo.
Sir Ralph was beginning to take too much for granted, and he had no mind—pink books and papers of a light and airy kind were his literature. Mrs. Herbert had been intellectual when desirous of attracting Jack, and, after her long acquaintance with Sir Ralph, she told him that old families are becoming ignorant and corrupt.
“Have you seen Launa’s voyageur?” asked Lady Blake.
“Who is he? Have I seen him?”