Dita's mouth had frozen, and the haughty and incredulous gaze which she cast for a brief, indignant moment on Alice would have turned one less bubblingly gay into a pillar of salt. This interview seemed incredible. She had always regarded Alice Wilstead as an especially well-bred woman, but this greed to attain an object at the sacrifice of her self-respect, even decency of feeling, and regardless of the position in which she would place the woman with whom she pleaded, was, to Dita, shocking, insulting, unforgivable. While she waited the fraction of a second to command her voice, Alice spoke again.
"But you seem angry." She was obviously both hurt and bewildered. "What have I done? Surely, you will not fail me now at this most crucial moment of my life. Why, consider, I am going to marry a man five years younger than myself."
Dita caught at a chair, and sat down, the room seemed to whirl about her, she pressed her hand to her brow.
"Alice Wilstead," she said, "what on earth do _you_ mean?"
"I mean what I say," returned Alice with a touch of acerbity. "I am going to be married. What do you mean?"
"But to whom, to whom?" Dita was all impatience.
"To whom? Why, to Hayward Preston, of course. One of your husband's business associates in the West. Surely you knew that?"
"I wish I had Maud by the throat," muttered Dita irrelevantly.
It was twenty minutes later when Maud put her shocked and disgusted head within the door.
"Dita," coldly surveying the two enthusiasts before her, who sat together in jocund amity, "Mrs. Hewston is out here in a state of great perturbation. Do you wish--"
But she got no further, for Mrs. Hewston, in the superiority of her greater bulk, pushed Maud into the room before her and now stood, the picture of pink and white and plump tragedy, on the threshold.
"Oh, Alice, I am glad to find you here," she wailed, advancing further into the room, while Maud discreetly closed the door, not upon herself, oh, no, but behind both of them. "You are always such a support." She sank into the chair Dita pushed toward her. "It's Willoughby, of course." She drew her handkerchief from her bag and mopped her eyes.
"Perdita Hepworth," she abandoned her spineless attitude and sat upright, speaking with vehemence. "I am more ashamed of being here than I can ever make you understand. But Willoughby!" There was resignation in her uplifted eyes, acidity in the purse of her mouth. "He is the dearest, most lovable fellow in the world," she looked at her listeners suspiciously, but meeting no correction, permitted her irritation a natural outlet, "but he is the most obstinate, stupid mule the Lord ever made."