Prologue

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      “Tell me something about the Lextons, Mary. Where did you pick them up?” asked Lady Flora Desmond of her hostess, Mrs. Hampton. “As I looked at Mrs. Lexton during dinner, I thought I had never seen a prettier face. When I was a child, your little friend would have been what people then called a professional beauty.”

      “She certainly is very pretty, and a regular honey-pot! Look at her now, with Miles Rushworth?”

      The speaker nodded towards the wide-open French window of the high-ceilinged, oval eighteenth-century sitting-room. She and two other women were sitting there together after dinner, on the Saturday evening of what Mrs. Hampton thought promised to be a very successful week-end party.

      The window gave access to a broad stone terrace. Beyond the terrace lay a wide lawn, bathed in bright moonlight, and across the lawn sauntered very slowly two figures, that of a tall man, and that of a slender woman dressed in a light-coloured frock. They were moving away from the beautiful old country-house where they were both staying as guests, making for an avenue of beeches.

      Mary Hampton went on, speaking not unkindly, but with a certain tartness: “He took her out in his motor after tea, so she might have left him alone after dinner.”

      “You oughtn’t to complain, my dear! You told me this morning that you had asked the Lextons this week-end so that they could make friends with your millionaire,” observed Joan Rodney.

      She was a sharp-tongued, clever spinster who enjoyed putting her friends right, and telling them home truths. Much was forgiven to Miss Rodney because she was, if sharp-tongued, fundamentally kind-hearted.

      “My millionaire, as you call him, is one of the finest amateur billiard-players in England. I made Jack get hold of the best of the young ‘pros.’ He could only spare us this evening, and now that all the men, and two of the women, are either playing or watching the play in the billiard-room, Miles is philandering with Ivy Lexton in the garden!”

      “Not philandering, Mary,” observed Lady Flora, smiling. “Mr. Rushworth never philanders.”

      “Well! You know what I mean. It’s my fault, of course. I ought to have known that no party would be big enough to hold Ivy Lexton and another attraction. Last time she was here she snatched such a nice boy from his best girl, and stopped, I’m afraid, a proposal.”

      Lady Flora looked sorry. A plain woman herself, she admired, without a touch of envy, physical beauty more than she admired anything else in the world.

      “I don’t suppose Mrs. Lexton can help attracting men. It’s human nature after all——”

      Quoted Joan Rodney, with a sharp edge to her voice:

      “It’s human nature but, if so, oh!

       Isn’t human nature low?”

      “Little Ivy isn’t exactly low; at least I hope not,” observed little Ivy’s hostess reflectively. “But I do feel that there’s a curiously soulless quality about her. Though she’s not what people call clever, there’s something baffling about Ivy Lexton. I liked her much better when I first knew her.”

      “She mayn’t be what silly people call clever, but she’s plenty of what used to be called ‘nous,’” said Miss Rodney drily. “She engineered her stroll with Mr. Rushworth very cleverly to-night. Your husband was determined to get him into the billiard-room——”

      “She had a good excuse for that, Joan. As I told you yesterday, Jervis Lexton has been looking out for something to do for a long while.”

      Mrs. Hampton turned to her other friend. “It suddenly occurred to me, Flora, that Miles Rushworth, who must have many jobs in his gift, might find Jervis Lexton something to do. Ivy knows that I asked them both for this week-end on purpose that they might meet him. It isn’t easy to get hold of him for this kind of party.”

      “Have you known the Lextons long, Mary?” asked Lady Flora.

      She