“It was simply inhuman of Pragg to go off now,” Mrs. Trenor declared, as her friend seated herself at the desk. “She says her sister is going to have a baby—as if that were anything to having a house-party! I’m sure I shall get most horribly mixed up and there will be some awful rows. When I was down at Tuxedo I asked a lot of people for next week, and I’ve mislaid the list and can’t remember who is coming. And this week is going to be a horrid failure too—and Gwen Van Osburgh will go back and tell her mother how bored people were. I did mean to ask the Wetheralls—that was a blunder of Gus’s. They disapprove of Carry Fisher, you know. As if one could help having Carry Fisher! It was foolish of her to get that second divorce—Carry always overdoes things—but she said the only way to get a penny out of Fisher was to divorce him and make him pay alimony. And poor Carry has to consider every dollar. It’s really absurd of Alice Wetherall to make such a fuss about meeting her, when one thinks of what society is coming to. Someone said the other day that there was a divorce and a case of appendicitis in every family one knows. Besides, Carry is the only person who can keep Gus in a good humour when we have bores in the house. Have you noticed that all the husbands like her? All, I mean, except her own. It’s rather clever of her to have made a specialty of devoting herself to dull people—the field is such a large one, and she has it practically to herself. She finds compensations, no doubt—I know she borrows money of Gus—but then I’d pay her to keep him in a good humour, so I can’t complain, after all.”
Mrs. Trenor paused to enjoy the spectacle of Miss Bart’s efforts to unravel her tangled correspondence.
“But it is only the Wetheralls and Carry,” she resumed, with a fresh note of lament. “The truth is, I’m awfully disappointed in Lady Cressida Raith.”
“Disappointed? Had you known her before?”
“Mercy, no—never saw her till yesterday. Lady Skiddaw sent her over with letters to the Van Osburghs, and I heard that Maria Van Osburgh was asking a big party to meet her this week, so I thought it would be fun to get her away, and Jack Stepney, who knew her in India, managed it for me. Maria was furious, and actually had the impudence to make Gwen invite herself here, so that they shouldn’t be quite out of it—if I’d known what Lady Cressida was like, they could have had her and welcome! But I thought any friend of the Skiddaws’ was sure to be amusing. You remember what fun Lady Skiddaw was? There were times when I simply had to send the girls out of the room. Besides, Lady Cressida is the Duchess of Beltshire’s sister, and I naturally supposed she was the same sort; but you never can tell in those English families. They are so big that there’s room for all kinds, and it turns out that Lady Cressida is the moral one—married a clergyman and does missionary work in the East End. Think of my taking such a lot of trouble about a clergyman’s wife, who wears Indian jewelry and botanizes! She made Gus take her all through the glass-houses yesterday, and bothered him to death by asking him the names of the plants. Fancy treating Gus as if he were the gardener!”
Mrs. Trenor brought this out in a crescendo of indignation.
“Oh, well, perhaps Lady Cressida will reconcile the Wetheralls to meeting Carry Fisher,” said Miss Bart pacifically.
“I’m sure I hope so! But she is boring all the men horribly, and if she takes to distributing tracts, as I hear she does, it will be too depressing. The worst of it is that she would have been so useful at the right time. You know we have to have the Bishop once a year, and she would have given just the right tone to things. I always have horrid luck about the Bishop’s visits,” added Mrs. Trenor, whose present misery was being fed by a rapidly rising tide of reminiscence; “last year, when he came, Gus forgot all about his being here, and brought home the Ned Wintons and the Farleys—five divorces and six sets of children between them!”
“When is Lady Cressida going?” Lily enquired.
Mrs. Trenor cast up her eyes in despair. “My dear, if one only knew! I was in such a hurry to get her away from Maria that I actually forgot to name a date, and Gus says she told someone she meant to stop here all winter.”
“To stop here? In this house?”
“Don’t be silly—in America. But if no one else asks her—you know they never go to hotels.”
“Perhaps Gus only said it to frighten you.”
“No—I heard her tell Bertha Dorset that she had six months to put in while her husband was taking the cure in the Engadine. You should have seen Bertha look vacant! But it’s no joke, you know—if she stays here all the autumn she’ll spoil everything, and Maria Van Osburgh will simply exult.”
At this affecting vision Mrs. Trenor’s voice trembled with self-pity.
“Oh, Judy—as if any one were ever bored at Bellomont!” Miss Bart tactfully protested. “You know perfectly well that, if Mrs. Van Osburgh were to get all the right people and leave you with all the wrong ones, you’d manage to make things go off, and she wouldn’t.”
Such an assurance would usually have restored Mrs. Trenor’s complacency; but on this occasion it did not chase the cloud from her brow.
“It isn’t only Lady Cressida,” she lamented. “Everything has gone wrong this week. I can see that Bertha Dorset is furious with me.”
“Furious with you? Why?”
“Because I told her that Lawrence Selden was coming; but he wouldn’t, after all, and she’s quite unreasonable enough to think it’s my fault.”
Miss Bart put down her pen and sat absently gazing at the note she had begun.
“I thought that was all over,” she said.
“So it is, on his side. And of course Bertha has been idle since. But I fancy she’s out of a job just at present—and someone gave me a hint that I had better ask Lawrence. Well, I did ask him—but I couldn’t make him come; and now I suppose she’ll take it out of me by being perfectly nasty to every one else.”
“Oh, she may take it out of him by being perfectly charming—to someone else.”
Mrs. Trenor shook her head dolefully. “She knows he wouldn’t mind. And who else is there? Alice Wetherall won’t let Lucius out of her sight. Ned Silverton can’t take his eyes off Carry Fisher—poor boy! Gus is bored by Bertha, Jack Stepney knows her too well—and—well, to be sure, there’s Percy Gryce!”
She sat up smiling at the thought.
Miss Bart’s countenance did not reflect the smile.
“Oh, she and Mr. Gryce would not be likely to hit it off.”
“You mean that she’d shock him and he’d bore her? Well, that’s not such a bad beginning, you know. But I hope she won’t take it into her head to be nice to him, for I asked him here on purpose for you.”
Lily laughed. “Merci Du Compliment! I should certainly have no show against Bertha.”
“Do you think I am uncomplimentary? I’m not really, you know. Every one knows you’re a thousand times handsomer and cleverer than Bertha; but then you’re not nasty. And for always getting what she wants in the long run, commend me to a nasty woman.”
Miss Bart stared in affected reproval. “I thought you were so fond of Bertha.”
“Oh, I am—it’s much safer to be fond of dangerous people. But she is dangerous—and if I ever saw her up to mischief it’s now. I can tell by poor George’s manner. That man is a perfect barometer—he always knows when Bertha is going to—”
“To