Insensibly Mildred felt mollified. She knew perfectly well that, though Lady Ardingly did not rush about to see everybody, it was only because everybody rushed about to see her; but still there was to her a faint aroma of compliment about the speech. She disentangled a misshapen Yorkshire terrier from her muff.
"Who, for instance?" she said. "Now, Jack--he is a friend of yours, I know."
"Of both of ours," said Lady Ardingly with an intonation far more confirmatory, than correcting.
"Yes--such a dear, isn't he? Well, people have been talking about him as possibly going to the War Office. Dear Jack! I can scarcely imagine him there."
"Yes, that is interesting," said Lady Ardingly. "So he means to take up politics quite seriously. I am glad you have urged him to do that, and that you have used your influence with him in that direction!"
"Yes, Jack really has great talent," she said. "And he knows about guns and smokeless powder, and--and that sort of thing, I believe. There is a craze just now for people managing Departments of which they know something. Quite new, isn't it?"
"Ah, you mean Ardingly," said the other. "How cruel of you!"
"Dear Lady Ardingly!" said Mildred, "how can you say such a thing! Of course I did not mean anything of the sort. But, seriously, I think that Jack would do well at the War Office. Do not you?"
"Oh, he is not a fool! But it is necessary that he should have a wife. Does one count Marie Alston as a wife, do you think?"
Mildred frowned quite naturally, and Lady Ardingly, though accustomed to find her manoeuvres successful, was almost surprised at the success of this.
"That reminds me," she said. "I wonder whether you have heard it? There is going about a horrid, horrid scandal about Marie. It started, as far as I know, in that Bridge club--'Deuce of Spades,' is it not? Well, there one afternoon, about ten days ago, Silly Billy remarked that the Snowflake had melted, referring to the matter. Everybody knew what he meant, and Jack, as it happened, was in the room at the time. Was it not awful? And it has gone all over London?"
Lady Ardingly sat up in her chair with the deliberation that characterized all her movements, and took a cigarette from a tray. She lighted it quite slowly without replying. It was time, she felt, to begin taking the ribs out of this poor umbrella.