"Do you mean it, Montague?" she asked, giving him her hand with a dazzling smile that softened her whole countenance and made it very tender. "We do, indeed!" said Burgoyne, bowing over her other hand--while Pendleton took her sunshade. There was a momentary pause. She looked from one to the other a bit questioningly--smiled again--and with a hand in each of theirs stepped lightly from the carriage. "We have a table just around the corner--shall we go to it?" Pendleton suggested. She shot him a glance from under her half-closed lids--a glance of appreciation and gratitude. "If you don't mind," she replied--"I'm a bit afraid of these people." They went slowly down the piazza; and the crowd, which had been dumb with amazement or curiosity or looking, suddenly began to talk like mad, and to occupy themselves with the tea things or with one another. Mrs. Lorraine saw--and with a haughtily amused smile, with never a glance at any of them, with her head held high and her body turned a trifle so as to converse with Pendleton, she threaded her way between chairs and tables and people to the place reserved. "Did you ever behold such brazenness!" exclaimed Mrs. Postlewaite when Mrs. Lorraine had passed. "The shameless woman!" Mrs. Pearce echoed. "It is a disgrace to the Club!" pronounced Mrs. Busbee. "It is a disgrace to society!" declared Mrs. Porterfield. "What shall we do to manifest our disgust and disapproval?" "Leave at once--it is positively contaminating to be near her," decided Mrs. Postlewaite. And they went straightway--summoning their cars with much to-do and ostentatious show. "Play! Play! be absorbed in the game--don't let on you've seen her!" whispered young Mrs. Carstairs, as Mrs. Lorraine drew near.... "I didn't know what to do--I was facing her," said her partner, Mrs. Chilten. "It didn't matter greatly what you did," smiled Mrs. Burleston. "She didn't look at any one--she ignored us all." "She doesn't care a rap what we do--and she has proved it by coming here," said Mrs. Westlake. "She has got pluck, all right." "I should call it effrontery," said Mrs. Carstairs, "hardened effrontery." "I think she is to be pitied," Mrs. Westlake remarked. "Are you prepared to pity her by offering friendship?" Mrs. Carstairs asked. "It doesn't look as if she were asking any one for either pity or friendship," was the answer. "Moreover, I've known Stephanie Lorraine a long time--and she isn't that sort." "When a woman runs away from her husband with a man--and comes back, she isn't any sort, in my opinion," Mrs. Carstairs sniffed. "I hope, for the honor of our sex, that your opinion isn't ours as a class," Mrs. Westlake smiled. "On the basis of _honor_, Mrs. Lorraine could not be even considered," was the retort. "I bid one on no trump--let us play cards and not fuss," interposed Mrs. Chilten. "And every one will do as she thinks best, anyway," said Mrs. Burleston. "I bid two on hearts." The men had been in a quandary.