Henrietta, to whom this was apparently the last straw, cast her an et tu Brute look and blundered out of the room, with a muttered remark about it being "surprising what a pretty face can do to influence people." Which Lucy took to refer to Innes, not to herself.
In the drawing-room was a very crowded silence.
"I thought I knew all about Henrietta," Madame said at last, reflective and puzzled.
"I thought one could trust her to do justice," Miss Lux said, bitter.
Froken got to her feet without a word, and still looking contemptuous and sullen, walked out of the room. They watched her go with gloomy approbation; her silence was comment enough.
"It is a pity that this should have happened, when everything was going so well," Wragg said, producing another of her unhelpful offerings. She was like someone running round with black-currant lozenges to the victims of an earthquake. "Everyone has been so pleased with their posts, and-"
"Do you think she will come to her senses when she has had time to think it over?" Lux asked Madame.
"She has been thinking it over for nearly a week. Or rather she has had it settled in her mind for nearly a week; so that by now it has become established fact and she will not be able to see it any other way."
"And yet she couldn't have been sure about it-I mean, sure of our reaction-or she would not have kept it to herself until now. Perhaps when she thinks it over-"
"When she thinks it over she will remember that Catherine Lux questioned the Royal Prerogative-"