At the rooms at Monte Carlo, and in another class and another race, they were the kind who played in the smallest stakes themselves, and often snatched the other people's money.
"I have never heard my husband speak of you," she said presently, when she had silently borne a good deal of vitriolic gush.

"You have perhaps been out of England for some time ?" And Lady Anningford whispered to Ethelrida, "We need not worry to be ready to defend her, pet! She can hold her own!" So they moved on to the group of the girls.
But at the end of their conversation, though Zara had used her method of silence in a considerable degree and made it as difficult as she could for Lady Highford, still, that artist in petty spite had been able to leave behind her some rankling stings.

She was a mistress of innuendo.
So that when the men came in, and Tristram, from the sense of "not funking things" which was in him, deliberately found Laura and sat down upon a distant sofa with her, Zara suddenly felt some unpleasant feeling about her heart.

She found that she desired to watch them, and that, in spite of what any one said to her, her attention wandered back to the distant sofa in some unconscious speculation and unrest.
And Laura was being exceedingly clever.

She scented with the cunning of her species that Tristram was really unhappy, whether he was in love with his hatefully beautiful wife or not.