“He said he might be late. Benny came, of course?”
“Yes, and Eloise is happy. He had brought her all the town gossip. That’s why I left. I hate gossip.”
Edith knew that pose. No one could talk more devastatingly than Adelaide of her neighbor’s affairs. But she did it, subtly, with an effect of charity. “I am very fond of her,” was her way of prefacing a ruthless revelation.
“I thought your brother would be down,” Adelaide looked at Jane, poised on the rim of the fountain, like a blue butterfly,—“but he wasn’t with the rest.”
“Baldy can’t be here until to-morrow noon. He had to be in the office.”
“What are you going to do with yourself in the meantime, Edith?” Adelaide was in a mood to make people uncomfortable. She was uncomfortable herself. Jane, in billowing heavenly blue with rose ribbons floating at her girdle, was youth incarnate. And it was her youth that had attracted Towne.
The three women walked towards the house together. As they came out from under the arbor, they were aware of black clouds stretched across the horizon. “I hope it won’t rain,” Edith said. “Lucy is planning to serve dinner on the terrace.”
Adelaide was irritable. “I wish she wouldn’t. There’ll be bugs and things.”
Jane liked the idea of an out-of-door dinner. She thought that the maids in their pink linen were like rose-leaves blown across the lawn. There was a great umbrella over the table, rose-striped. “How gay it is,” she said; “I hope the rain won’t spoil it.”
When they reached the wide-pillared piazza, no one was there. The wind was blowing steadily from the bank of clouds. Edith went in to get a scarf.