There occurred to her, of course, at once a very obvious method of injuring Marie. All London--every one, that is to say, who mattered at all--except Marie herself, knew that she and Jack had been great friends for a very long time. What would be the effect on Marie if she let her know quietly, drop by drop, as one lets absinthe cloud and embitter water, what had been going on so long, what she had been blind to so long! Mildred knew her to be a woman of a pride and fastidiousness quite beyond not only her own reach, but her own comprehension. This she had never either resented or envied; if people chose to behave in what she called a Holy Land manner, it was nothing to her, but she was not jealous of their unattainable Oriental longitudes. It was all very well to sit on a pedestal, but if you did, you had no idea what games went on in the jostling world below. Marie's habitual attitude was to put her nose in the air and draw her skirts away from the crowd; it would really be very humiliating for her to get to learn by degrees what had been going on all these years, to upset the pedestal, in fact, and let her struggle to her feet as best she could, to let her, who always professed to find scandal and gossip of all sorts so uninteresting, know for the first time a bit of it which she could scarcely consider dull.
Mildred got up from the sofa where she was lying in her sitting-room, and, lighting a cigarette, took a turn up and down. At first sight it seemed an excellent plan, diabolical, which suited her mood, and simple as all good plans are; but on second thoughts there were objections. In her present anger she did not value Marie's friendship a straw, while as for her own reputation, she was well aware that for all practical purposes she had none. People, she knew, did not talk about Jack and her any longer, simply because the facts were so stale, "and that," she thought to herself with grim cynicism, "is what one calls living a thing down." No, the danger lay elsewhere. Supposing Marie cut up very rough indeed, supposing in her horror and disgust at Jack she did not hesitate to punish herself as well, and bring the matter if she could into the crude and convincing light of the Divorce Court, it would be both unpleasant for Mildred herself, for she felt that cross-examination was not likely to be amusing, and it would also spell ruin for Jack's career, a thing which now, in the present state of her affections, she cared about perhaps more than Jack. Of course, the matter might be conveyed to Marie in so gradual and vague a manner that such proceedings on her part would be without chance of success as far as getting a divorce was concerned--to possess her mind with suspicions that gradually became moral certainties was the point--but Mildred knew well that in the mind of the great middle class to be mentioned in connection with the Divorce Court is the mischief, not to lose or win your case there. In any case, if she decided on this she would have to think it very carefully over; it must be managed so that Marie could not possibly go to the courts. Besides, ridiculous as Marie would appear even if she adopted the least aggressive attitude of self-defence, yet Mildred felt she must not underrate the strength of her position in society. Perhaps another plan might be found as simple and without these objections. She wanted, in fact, to think of something which would hurt Marie as much as possible, and yet give her no chance of retaliation. Where was Marie vulnerable? Where was she most vulnerable?