"It is nature," said Colonel Lowerby. "A woman in possession of her
health and faculties requires a mate, and when her husband is attending
to sport or some other man's wife, she is bound to find one somewhere. I
don't blame the poor things."
"Oh, nor I!" said Anne. "I don't ever blame any one. And just one,
because you love him, seems all right, perhaps. It is six different ones
in a year, and a seventh to pay the bills, that I find vulgar."
"Dans les premières passions, les femmes aiment l'amant; et dans les
autres, elles aiment l'amour," quoted the Crow. "It was ever the same,
you see. It is the seventh to pay the bills that seems vulgar and
modern."
"Billy and I stayed there for the pheasant shoot last November, and I
assure you we felt quite out of it, having no little adventures at night
like the rest. Lady Ada is the picture of washed-out respectability
herself, and so--to give her some reflected color, I suppose--she asks
always the most go-ahead, advanced section of her acquaintances."
"Well, I shall be there this time," said the Crow; "she invited me last
week."
This piece of news comforted Lady Anningford greatly. She felt here
would be some one to help matters if he could.
"Morella will be perfectly furious when she gets there and finds she was
not the reason of Hector's empressement for the invitation. And in her
stolid way she can be just as spiteful as Lady Harrowfield."
"Yes, I know."
Then they were both silent for a while--Anne's thoughts busy with the
mournful idea of the end of the House of Bracondale should Hector never
marry, and the Crow's of her in sympathy, his eyes watching her face.
At last she spoke.
"I believe it would be best for Hector to go right away for a year or
so," she sighed. "But, however it may be, I fear, alas! it can only end
in tears."