The uncomplimentary confidence was made into the shell-like ear of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, who, faultlessly gowned by Worth, was sitting apart with her nominal hostess in the embrasure of an oriel window. The Duke was hovering near the piano, and Forsyth was talking to Mrs. Sadgrove and Mrs. Sherman. The General was not present, having excused himself from coming straight from the dining-room on the plea of having a letter to write.
Sybil's disjointed remark--for it followed a discussion on French cookery--caused a sudden twist of the ivory shoulders towards her, the swift eagerness of the movement being discounted by the languorous stare of slowly interested surprise. There was a hint of resentment, perhaps also a trace of alarm, in the wheeling of the décolletée shoulders; in the stare these emotions were corrected into a mild desire to hear more of such a sweeping surmise.
"Lunatics--those two!" Mrs. Talmage Eglinton exclaimed, in well-modulated astonishment. "That's what you English call rather a large order, isn't it? What makes you say so?"
"Hush! My cousin is trying to persuade Miss Sherman to sing," replied Sybil. "Wait till she has begun, and I'll tell you. It's too funny to keep to one's self."
For two days now the house-party at Prior's Tarrant had been increased by the elegant addition of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, and on the surface matters were pursuing their normal course. The Duke had received his latest guest with a democratic courtesy none the less cordial because of her floridly expressed note, which in the stress of other preoccupations he had forgotten altogether. He had a vague idea that the General had wished the vivacious American to be included because she was a fellow countrywoman of the Shermans, and that was quite enough to ensure his good-will towards her.
This view was so far from being the right one that Mrs. Sherman and Leonie had only succeeded in being coldly polite to the latest arrival. Mrs. Sadgrove, with an inkling that the beautifully dressed but too effusive American was an important factor in her husband's schemes, was more outwardly complacent, but it was reserved for Sybil to shower upon Mrs. Talmage Eglinton special civilities which had ended, after two days only, in their becoming constant companions, if not bosom friends. If the handsome visitor wanted to walk in the park or to be shown some object of interest in the gardens, Sybil was always at hand to accompany her; and if it rained, as it had done all this day, she spent hours in entertaining her in her own rooms.