“Not at all bad.”
“I must say I like the pathetic style of play.”
“Oh yes, quite charming.”
“I saw Julia Neilson play in that play, oh—what was the play called?—”
“‘A Woman of no Ideal,’ most likely,” thought Mrs. Betty. “I wonder how many more times she is going to tread on that one unfortunate word.”
She waited demurely for the title to recur, but it appeared lost in the limbo of the fat lady’s mind. The brewer’s wife continued to grope for it like a conscientious housewife who has lost the Sabbath threepenny bit in her glove-box while dressing for church.
Betty Steel, however, had become utterly oblivious of her presence for the moment. She was gazing towards one of the open windows where a woman’s figure, tall and comely in simple black, showed against the rich green of the grass. The woman’s back was turned towards the room, but Betty knew her by her figure and the lustre of her hair.
“Very odd, Mrs. Steel, I can’t remember the name of that play.”
“Really, I beg your pardon, I was thinking of other things.”
A slight rearranging of this aggregate of Roxton culture released Betty Steel from this amiable mass of irresponsible bathos. She contrived to wedge herself beside Madge Ellison, whose retroussé nose had failed to tempt the celibate to expand.