"Innocent or guilty, Thelma must see it," she decided. "I wonder how she'll take it! If she wants a proof--it's one she'll scarcely deny. Some women would fret themselves to death over it--but I shouldn't wonder if she sat down under it quite calmly without a word of complaint." She frowned a little. "Why must she always be superior to others of her sex! How I detest that still solemn smile of hers and those big baby-blue eyes! I think if Philip had married any other woman than she--a woman more like the rest of us who'd have gone with her time,--I could have forgiven him more easily. But to pick up a Norwegian peasant and set her up as a sort of moral finger-post to society--and then to go and compromise himself with Violet Vere--that's a kind of thing I can't stand! I'd rather be anything in the world than a humbug!"
Many people desire to be something they are not, and her ladyship quite unconsciously echoed this rather general sentiment. She was, without knowing it, such an adept in society humbug, that she even humbugged herself. She betrayed herself as she betrayed others, and told little soothing lies to her own conscience as she told them to her friends. There are plenty of women like her,--women of pleasant courtesy and fashion, to whom truth is mere coarseness,--and with whom polite lying passes for perfect breeding. She was not aware, as she was driven along Park Lane to her own residence, that she carried with her on the box of her brougham a private detective in the person of Briggs. Perched stiffly on his seat, with arms tightly folded, this respectable retainer was quite absorbed in meditation, so much so that he exchanged not a word with his friend, the coachman, beside him. He had his own notions of propriety,--he considered that his mistress had no business whatever to call on an actress of Violet Vere's repute,--and he resolved that whether he were reproved for over-officiousness or not, nothing should prevent him from casually mentioning to Lord Winsleigh the object of her ladyship's drive that morning.
"For," mused Briggs gravely, "a lady 'as responsibilities, and 'owever she forgets 'erself, appearances 'as to be kep' up."
With the afternoon, the fog which had hung over the city all day, deepened and darkened. Thelma had lunched with Mrs. Lorimer, and had enjoyed much pleasant chat with that kindly, cheerful old lady. She had confided to her, part of the story of Sir Francis Lennox's conduct, carefully avoiding every mention of the circumstance which had given rise to it,--namely, the discussion about Violet Vere. She merely explained that she had suddenly fainted, in which condition Sir Francis had taken advantage of her helplessness to insult her.