“It was stockings,” she said.  “There were some marked down to one and elevenpence halfpenny at Barratt’s.  They were really quite good for the price.  And you wanted four pairs.  And when I got there they were all gone, and those at two and three were not the least bit better.  I was so disappointed.  It was too bad!”

Walderhurst fixed his monocle firmly to conceal the fact that he was verging upon a cynical grin.  The woman was known to be the stingiest of small great persons in London, her economies were noted, and this incident was even better than many others society had already rejoiced over.  The picture raised in the minds of the hearers of her Grace foiled in the purchase of stockings marked down to 1_s_. 11-1/2_d_. would be a source of rapture for some time to come.  And Emily’s face!  The regretful kindness of it, the retrospective sympathy and candid feeling!  It was incredibly good!

“And she did it quite by accident!” he repeated to himself in his inward glee.  “She did it quite by accident!  She’s not clever enough to have done it on purpose.  What a brilliantly witty creature she would be if she had invented it!”

As she had been able unreluctantly to recall her past upon this occasion, so she was able to draw for Mrs. Osborn’s benefit from the experience it had afforded her.  She wanted to make up to her, in such ways as she could, for the ill turn she had inadvertently done her.  As she had at once ranged herself as an aid on the side of Lady Agatha, so she ranged herself entirely without obtrusiveness on the side of the Osborns.

“It’s true that she’s a good sort,” Hester said when they went away.  “Her days of being hard up are not far enough away to be forgotten.  She hasn’t any affectation, at any rate.  It makes it easier to stand her.”

“She looks like a strong woman,” said Osborn.  “Walderhurst got a good deal for his money.  She’ll make a strapping British matron.”

Hester winced and a dusky red shot up in her cheek.  “So she will,” she sighed.

It was quite true, and the truer it was the worse for people who despairingly hung on and were foolish enough to hope against hope.

Chapter Eight

The marriage of Lady Agatha came first, and was a sort of pageant.  The female writers for fashion papers lived upon it for weeks before it occurred and for some time after.  There were numberless things to be written about it.  Each flower of the garden of girls was to be described, with her bridesmaid’s dress, and the exquisite skin and eyes and hair which would stamp her as the beauty of her season when she came out.  There yet remained five beauties in Lady Claraway’s possession, and the fifth was a baby thing of six, who ravished all beholders as she toddled into church carrying her sister’s train, aided by a little boy page in white velvet and point lace.

The wedding was the most radiant of the year.  It was indeed a fairy pageant, of youth and beauty, and happiness and hope.