forbore. 'I am sure it must be,' she agreed with difficulty. 'All the rain-'
'We have had quite a pleasant winter,' Lady Mary contradicted. 'But I daresay you have not been here to experience it?'
Zenobia satisfied her.
'No, no I returned only very recently.'
Lady Mary's rather straight eyebrows shot up. 'And you came to call upon me?'
Zenobia did not twitch a muscle. 'I wished to call upon Beatrice Allenby, but I cannot find a trace of her. No one seems to know where she is presently staying. And remembering how fond you were of her, I thought perhaps you might know?'
Lady Mary struggled, and the opportunity to relate a scandal won. 'Indeed I do-although I hardly know if I should tell you!' she said with satisfaction.
Zenobia aifected surprise and concern. 'Oh dear! Some misfortune?'
'That is not the word I would have used for it.''
'Good heavens! You don't mean a crime?'
'Of course I don't! Really, your mind is-' Lady Mary caught herself just in time before she was openly rude. That
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would have been vulgar, and she disliked Zenobia Gunne far too much to be vulgar in front of her, 'You have become more used to the unconventional behavior of foreigners. Certainly I do not speak of a crime-rather, a social disaster. She married beneath her and went to live hi Belgium.'
'Good gracious!' Zenobia let her amazement register fully. 'What an extraordinary thing! Well, there are some very fine cities in Belgium. I daresay she will be happy enough.'
'A cheesemaker!' Lady Mary added.
'A what?'
'A cheesemaker!' She let the word fall with all its redolence of trade. 'A person who manufactures cheese!'
Zenobia remembered a dozen such exchanges years ago- and Peter Holland's face so full of laughter. She knew exactly what he would have thought, what he would have said in a snatched moment alone. She raised her eyebrows. 'Are you perfectly sure?'
'Of course I'm sure!' Lady Mary snapped. 'It is not the sort of thing about which one makes mistakes!'
'Dear me. Her mother must be distraught!' A very clear picture came into Zenobia's mind of Beatrice Allenby's mother, who would have been delighted with any husband, so long as Beatrice did not remain at home.
'Naturally,' Lady Mary agreed. 'Wouldn't anyone? Although she had no one to blame but herself! She did not watch the girl as she should. One has to be vigilant.'
It was the opening Zenobia had been waiting for.
' 'Of course, your son married very nicely, didn't he? But then I hear he was a fine-looking young man.' She had not heard anything of the sort, but no mother minded having her son referred to as handsome; in her eyes no doubt he was. There were many photographs round the room, but she was too shortsighted to see them clearly. They could have been of anyone. 'And with such charm,' she added for good measure. 'So rare. Good-looking young men are apt to be
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ill-mannered, as if the pleasure of looking at them were sufficient.'
'Yes, indeed,' Lady Mary said with satisfaction. 'He could have chosen almost anyone!'
That was a wild
