In all my experience, my dear Margaret, I have never known a woman to frown upon a man who was as handsome, as well-born, as _chic_ as Maurice! Even though the man might be a--well"-- smiling and lifting her shoulders--"it's a rude word, but--well, a very devil!" She looks deliberately at Margaret over her fan, who really appears in this dull light _nearly_ as young as she is.

The look is a cruel one, hideously cruel.

Even Marian Bethune, whose bowels of compassion are extraordinary small, changes colour, and lets her red-brown eyes rest on the small woman lounging in the deep chair with a rather murderous gaze.
Yet Lady Rylton smiles on, enjoying the changes in Margaret's face.
It is a terrible smile, coming from so fragile a creature.
Margaret's face has grown white, but she answers coldly and with deliberation.

All that past horrible time--her lover, his unworthiness, his desertion--all her young, _young_ life lies once more massacred before her.
"The women who give in to such fascination, such mere outward charms, are fools!" says she with a strength that adorns her.
"Oh, come! Come now, dearest Margaret," says her aunt, with the gayest of little laughs, "would you call _yourself_ a fool?
Why, remember, your own dear Harold was----" "Pray spare me!" says Miss Knollys, in so cold, so haughty, so commanding a tone, that even Lady Rylton sinks beneath it.

She makes an effort to sustain her position and laughs lightly, but for all that she lets her last sentence remain a fragment.
"You think Maurice will propose to this Miss Bolton ?" says Marian Bethune, leaning forward.