'
'Still with The Dancing Master, I admit, but why on the strength of
that should you imagine '
'I imagine nothing. I have no imagination. I am only convinced that
The Dancing Master is attracted to The Dowd because he is
objectionable in every way and she in every other. If I know the
man as you have described him, he holds his wife in slavery at
present.'
'She is twenty years younger than he.'
'Poor wretch! And, in the end, after he has posed and swaggered
and lied he has a mouth under that ragged moustache simply made
for lies he will be rewarded according to his merits.'
'I wonder what those really are,' said Mrs. Mallowe.
But Mrs. Hauksbee, her face close to the shelf of the new books,
was humming softly: 'What shall he have who killed the Deer?' She
was a lady of unfettered speech.
One month later she announced her intention of calling upon Mrs.
Delville. Both Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Mallowe were in morning
wrappers, and there was a great peace in the land.
'I should go as I was,' said Mrs. Mallowe. 'It would be a delicate
compliment to her style.'
Mrs. Hauksbee studied herself in the glass.
'Assuming for a moment that she ever darkened these doors, I
should put on this robe, after all the others, to show her what a
morning-wrapper ought to be. It might enliven her. As it is, I shall
go in the dove-coloured sweet emblem of youth and innocence and
shall put on my new gloves.
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