Love at Second Sight | Page 9

your husband doesn't know it. You are wrong.'
'Am I really?'
'Quite. Last night a certain look when he spoke of the Mitchells showed me that Bruce is terribly jealous. He doesn't show it, but he is.'
'But--Mrs Mitchell?' suggested Edith. 'She's one of our best friends--a dear thing. By the way, we're asking them to dine with us on Tuesday.'
'I'm delighted to hear it. I shall understand everything then. Isn't it curious--without even seeing them--that I know all about it? I think I've a touch of second sight.'
'But, Eglantine, aren't you going a little far? Hadn't you better wait until you've seen them, at least. You've no idea how well the Mitchells get on.'
'I've no doubt of it,' she replied, 'and, of course, I don't know that he--Mr Mitchell, I mean--even realises what you are to him. But I do!'
Edith was really impressed at the dash with which Madame Frabelle so broadly handled this vague theme.
'Wait till you do see them,' she said, rather mischievously, declining to deny her friend's suggestion altogether.
'Odd I should have guessed it, isn't it?' Madame Frabelle was evidently pleased. 'You'll admit this, Edith, from what your husband says I gather you see each other continually, don't you?'
'Very often.'
'Bruce and he are together at the Foreign Office. Bruce thinks much of him, and admires him. With it all I notice now and then a tinge of bitterness in the way he speaks. He was describing their fancy-dress ball to me the other day, and really his description of Mr Mitchell's costume would have been almost spiteful in any other man.'
'Well, but Mr Mitchell is over sixty. And he was got up as a black poodle.'
'Yes; quite so. But he's a fine-looking man, isn't he? And very pleasant and hospitable?'
'Oh yes, of course.'
'On your birthday last week that magnificent basket of flowers came from Mr Mitchell,' stated Eglantine.
'Certainly; from the Mitchells rather. But, really, that's nothing. I think you'll be a little disappointed if you think he's at all of the romantic type.'
'I didn't think that,' she answered, though of course she had; 'but something told me--I don't know why--that there's some strange attraction.... I never saw a more perfect wife than you, nor a more perfect mother. But these things should be nipped in the bud, dear. They get hold of you sometimes before you know where you are. And think,' she went on with relish, 'how terrible it would be practically to break up two homes!'
'Oh, really, I must stop you there,' cried Edith. 'You don't think of elopements, do you?'
'I don't say that, necessarily. But I've seen a great deal of life. I've lived everywhere, and just the very households--m��nages, as we say abroad--that seem most calm and peaceful, sometimes--It would be, anyhow, very dreadful, wouldn't it--to live a double life?'
Edith thought her friend rather enjoyed the idea, but she said:
'You don't imagine, I hope, that there's anything in the nature of an intrigue going on between me and Mr Mitchell?'
'No, no, no--not now--not yet--but you don't quite know, Edith, how one can be carried away. As I was sitting up in my room--thinking--'
'You think too much,' interrupted Edith.
'Perhaps so--but it came to me like this. I mean to be the one to put things right again, if I can. My dear child, a woman of the world like myself sees things. You two ought to be ideally happy. You're meant for one another--I mean you and Bruce.'
'Do you think so?'
'Absolutely. But this--what shall I say?--this fascination is coming between you, and, though you don't realise it, it's saddening Bruce's life; it will sadden yours too. At first, no doubt, at the stage you're in, dear, it seems all romance and excitement. But later on--Now, Edith, promise me you won't be angry with me for what I've said? It's a terrible freedom that I've taken, I know. Really a liberty. But if I were your'--she glanced at the mirror--'elder sister, I couldn't be fonder of you. Don't think I'm a horrid, interfering old thing, will you?'
'Indeed I don't; you're a dear.'
'Well, we won't speak of it any more till after Tuesday,' said Madame Frabelle, 'and take my advice: throw yourself into other things.'
She glanced round the room.
'It's a splendid idea to divert your thoughts; why don't you refurnish your boudoir?'
Edith had often noticed the strange lack in Eglantine of any sense of decoration. She dressed charmingly, but with regard to surroundings she was entirely devoid of taste. She had the curious provincialism so often seen in cosmopolitans who have lived most of their lives in hotels, without apparently noticing or caring about their surroundings.
Edith made rather a hobby of decoration, and she had a cultured and quiet taste, and much knowledge on the subject. She guessed Madame Frabelle thought her rooms too plain, too colourless. Instead