"Simply that vanity is often mistaken for generosity, profusion for benevolence." "You are somewhat of a cynic, I know." "Nay, pardon me, I hope not." "She is too poorly clad in general, Pompon says, to be able to indulge in profusion," continued Lady Naseby, while Lady Estelle glanced at the speakers alternately, in silence and with apparent calmness. But Guilfoyle, who read her eyes and heart, and knew her secret thoughts, gloated on the pain she was enduring. "No doubt the unfortunate creature is much to be pitied," said he; "but when a woman has lost respect for herself, she cannot expect much of it from others. The poor little soiled love-bird has probably left some pretty semi-detached villa at Chertsey or St. John's Wood to follow its faithless redcoat to Hampshire, and hence the touching tableau in the lane," he added, with his mocking and strangely unreal laugh. "Mr. Guilfoyle!" said the Countess, in a tone of expostulation, while her daughter darted a glance of inexpressible scorn at him. But he continued coolly, "Well, perhaps I should not speak so slightingly of her, after what she has given herself out to be." "And what is that?" asked Lady Naseby. "Only--his wife." "His wife!" exclaimed Estelle, starting in spite of herself. "Yes, Lady Estelle; but it may not be, nay, I hope is not, the case." "You should rather hope that it is so." "But we all know what military men are--never particular to a shade; and though excuses must be made for the temptations that surround them, and also for youth, I approve of the continental system, which generally excludes subaltern officers from society." "Wife!" repeated Estelle; "O, it cannot be!" "What is it to _you_--to us?" asked mamma, with a slight asperity of tone. "Well, wife or not, she certainly wears a wedding-ring, and he has been more than once to visit her in that inn at Whitchurch. Of one visit our mutual friend Mr. Sharpus is cognisant. If you doubt this, ask him, and he will not contradict _me_." "I have not said that I doubt you, Mr. Guilfoyle," said Estelle, with intense hauteur, while for a moment--but a moment only--her eyes flashed, her breast heaved, her hands were clenched, a burning colour suffused her face, and her feet were firmly planted on the carpet; yet she asked quietly, "Why do we hear this scandalous story at all? What is it to mamma--what to me?" "More, perhaps, than you care to admit," said he, in a low voice, as the Countess rose to place Tiny in his mother-of-pearl basket.