She talked to the man at her left, but soon turned to him with: “Doesn’t it shock you, the way divorce is growing nowadays? It’s almost as bad in England, I understand, as it is with us. We’re taking up all the habits of the common sort of people. Really, I try to be broad-minded, but I can’t keep up with the rising generation. A young married woman called on me this afternoon--she and her husband are of our best families. She told me she was engaged to a young married man in New York. ‘But,’ said I, ‘you’re both married.’ ‘We’re going to get our divorces in the spring,’ she said. She asked me not to say anything about her engagement--‘for,’ said she, ‘we haven’t announced it. I’ve not told my husband yet that I’m going to get a divorce, and my fiancé hasn’t told his wife.’ What do you think of that, Lord Frothingham?” “Devilish enterprising, isn’t it, now? That’s what we call a Yankee notion. Do you think it’ll be a go?” “I’ve no doubt of it. She’s extremely energetic--and conscienceless--I’d say brazen, if she weren’t a lady.” When the women went into the drawing room Ridgeway Staunton brought to Frothingham a tall, ascetic-looking man, with the bald, smooth, bulging temples and the sourly curled lips of habitual bad temper. “Lord Frothingham, Mr. Allerton.” They bowed stiffly, and looked each at the other uncertainly. “I’ve heard much of you from my sister-in-law, Mrs. Staunton,” said Allerton. “She’s been very good to me,” replied Frothingham cordially. “She’s an admirable woman,” said Allerton. “She has been a mother--more than a mother--to my little girl for years.” “Your daughter was most fortunate,” replied Frothingham, in a tone that was for him enthusiastic.