"
"Was she? Curious I didn't see her. Tea? With gratitude, dear, if it's
Scotch."
She sat erect, the furs sliding to the back of the chair, revealing the
rather accented details of her perfectly turned figure; and rolling up
her gloves she laid her pretty head on one side and considered Boots
with very bright and malicious eyes.
"They say," she said, smiling, "that some very heavy play goes on in
that cunning little new house of yours, Mr. Lansing."
"Really?" he asked blandly.
"Yes; and I'm wondering if it is true."
"I shouldn't think you'd care, Mrs. Fane, as long as it makes a good
story."
Rosamund flushed. Then, always alive to humour, laughed frankly.
"What a nasty thing to say to a woman!" she observed; "it fairly reeks
impertinence. Mr. Lansing, you don't like me very well, do you?"
"I dare not," he said, "because you are married. If you were only free
_a vinculo matrimonii_--"
Rosamund laughed again, and sat stroking her muff and smiling. "Curious,
isn't it?" she said to Nina--"the inborn antipathy of two agreeable
human bipeds for one another.
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