Mrs. Harding came down to her in the afternoon.
“Well, you’re a nice cup of tea, you are; you demure little monkey, do you often carry on like that?”
“If I did, I suppose I shouldn’t have such a beastly headache.”
“Don’t know so much about that; I’m a pretty hardened vessel, but a drink too much always gets back at you in the morning, I find. I don’t feel too bright myself, and I don’t look much of a beauty,” she said, looking into the glass. “This life knocks spots out of one, there’s no doubt, but it’s the only one worth living—merry if it is short. Had a hair of the dog that bit? If not, why not? I’ll have one too, he bit me a bit.”
“Help yourself; you’ll find it on the sideboard in the next room.”
“Feel so cheap as all that? Buck up! Have one with me, and you’ll soon feel spry again.”
“What are you doing to-night?” asked Mrs. Harding. “I’m dining out with my old man, who’s just wired me he gets back this afternoon, or we could have had a lark together somewhere.”
“How’s your young man? George’s been away a long time. Wouldn’t he be wild if he knew what a rollicking time the mouse has when the cat’s away. It’s just like men; they expect us to be jolly when they want us, and we jolly well have to be—but as for being jolly when they’re away—oh, Lord, no, that’s shocking. My lord may carry on with as many as he likes, but one woman one man. Thank goodness, they’re easily bamboozled.”
Mrs. Harding did not remain for long. She did not care for dull company, which Marian undoubtedly was this afternoon. She felt a trifle mean, too. She did not know for what purpose Davis desired the information he had asked her to obtain, but believed it to be for Maddison, and knew that if such was the case, Marian’s next meeting with him would not be pleasant.
Marian did not go out that day or the next, spending her time reading and dozing over the fire. She hoped to hear from West, but no message of any sort came from him.
On the third day, she dressed early in the afternoon, and went in the omnibus down to Regent Street. As she stepped on to the pavement at Oxford Circus, she knocked against a man who was passing. He did not notice her, but she recognized West, and with him the woman she had seen at the Gaiety. They were evidently absorbed in one another, so much so that he did not apologize to Marian for an accident which was more than half his fault. Her first impulse was to walk up to him and speak to him. Then a sickening sense of the difference between the other woman and herself stopped her; they could not be rivals. She had set her wares before West, and if he did not wish to buy them, she could not force him to do so.