'"
III
It was several weeks later that Mrs. Clinch once more brought the
plebeian aroma of heated tram-cars and muddy street-crossings into
the violet-scented atmosphere of her cousin's drawing-room.
"Well," she said, tossing a damp bundle of proof into the corner of
a silk-cushioned bergere, "I've read it at last and I'm not so
awfully shocked!"
Mrs. Fetherel, who sat near the fire with her head propped on a
languid hand, looked up without speaking.
"Mercy, Paula," said her visitor, "you're ill."
Mrs. Fetherel shook her head. "I was never better," she
said, mournfully.
"Then may I help myself to tea? Thanks."
Mrs. Clinch carefully removed her mended glove before taking a
buttered tea-cake; then she glanced again at her cousin.
"It's not what I said just now--?" she ventured.
"Just now?"
"About 'Fast and Loose'? I came to talk it over."
Mrs. Fetherel sprang to her feet. "I never," she cried dramatically,
"want to hear it mentioned again!"
"Paula!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, setting down her cup.
Mrs. Fetherel slowly turned on her an eye brimming with the
incommunicable; then, dropping into her seat again, she added, with
a tragic laugh, "There's nothing left to say."
"Nothing--?" faltered Mrs. Clinch, longing for another tea-cake, but
feeling the inappropriateness of the impulse in an atmosphere so
charged with the portentous. "Do you mean that everything _has_ been
said?" She looked tentatively at her cousin.
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