Lady Malden answered: 

“Gregory Vigil?  The man with a lot of greyish hair?  I’ve had to do with him in the S.R.W.C.”

But Mrs. Pendyce was dancing mentally.

“Such a good fellow!  What is that—­the——?”

Lady Malden gave her a sharp look.

“Society for the Rescue of Women and Children, of course.  Surely you know about that?”

Mrs. Pendyce continued to smile.

“Ah, yes, that is nice!  What a beautiful figure she has!  It’s so refreshing.  I envy a woman with a figure like that; it looks as if it would never grow old.  ‘Society for the Regeneration of Women’?  Gregory’s so good about that sort of thing.  But he never seems quite successful, have you noticed?  There was a woman he was very interested in this spring.  I think she drank.”

“They all do,” said Lady Malden; “it’s the curse of the day.”

Mrs. Pendyce wrinkled her forehead.

“Most of the Totteridges,” she said, “were great drinkers.  They ruined their constitutions.  Do you know Jaspar Bellew?”

“No.”

“It’s such a pity he drinks.  He came to dinner here once, and I’m afraid he must have come intoxicated.  He took me in; his little eyes quite burned me up.  He drove his dog cart into a ditch on the way home.  That sort of thing gets about so.  It’s such a pity.  He’s quite interesting.  Horace can’t stand him.”

The music of the waltz had ceased.  Lady Maiden put her glasses to her eyes.  From close beside them George and Mrs. Bellew passed by.  They moved on out of hearing, but the breeze of her fan had touched the arching hair on Lady Maiden’s forehead, the down on her upper lip.

“Why isn’t she with her husband?” she asked abruptly.

Mrs. Pendyce lifted her brows.

“Do you concern yourself to ask that which a well-bred woman leaves unanswered?” she seemed to say, and a flush coloured her cheeks.

Lady Maiden winced, but, as though it were forced through her mouth by some explosion in her soul, she said: 

“You have only to look and see how dangerous she is!”

The colour in Mrs. Pendyce’s cheeks deepened to a blush like a girl’s.

“Every man,” she said, “is in love with Helen Bellew.  She’s so tremendously alive.  My cousin Gregory has been in love with her for years, though he is her guardian or trustee, or whatever they call them now.  It’s quite romantic.  If I were a man I should be in love with her myself.”  The flush vanished and left her cheeks to their true colour, that of a faded rose.

Once more she was listening to the voice of young Trefane, “Ah, Margery, I love you!”—­to her own half whispered answer, “Poor boy!” Once more she was looking back through that forest of her life where she had wandered so long, and where every tree was Horace Pendyce.

“What a pity one can’t always be young!” she said.