Early next day I went and told Vera everything. I found her seated in the lounge on the right of the hall.
She listened eagerly, and I saw at once that the news excited her a good deal, yet to my surprise she made no comment, but changed the subject of conversation by remarking—
“Violet brought Frank Faulkner here yesterday evening. He is engaged to be married to her. He has broken off his engagement to Gladys Deroxe, and I am very glad he has,” she declared.
“Really,” I exclaimed. “Well, frankly I’m not surprised, for I believe he has been in love with Violet from the moment he first met her. But how did Miss Deroxe take it? Was there a dreadful scene?”
“Scene? There was no scene at all, it appears. What happened was simply this. Gladys discovered that Frank had brought Violet over from the Riviera, that she was staying here at his expense, and that he seemed to be extremely attentive to her. Now, a sensible girl would have asked her future husband, in a case of that sort, to come to see her and explain everything. That, certainly, is what I should have done.”
“And what did Miss Deroxe do?”
“Do? Good Heavens, she sat down then and there and wrote him a letter—oh! such a letter! He showed it to me. I have never in my life read anything so insulting. She ended by telling him in writing that she had never really cared for him, and that she hoped she would never see him again. In one place she wrote: ‘I might have guessed the kind of man you are by the kind of company you keep. I know all about your friend, Richard Ashton. He associates with dreadful people. I am only glad I have found you out before it was too late!’ Those were her words. So you see the kind of reputation you have acquired, my dear Dick.”
I laughed—laughed uproariously. I, “the associate of dreadful people,” I, a member of that hot-bed of conventions and of respectability, Brooks’s Club. The whole thing was delicious.
“When will Frank and Violet be here again?”
I asked presently, after we had ascended together to the private sitting-room.