Thank heaven no
one would say: "Poor old Susy--did you know Nick had chucked her?" They
would all say: "Poor old Nick! Yes, I daresay she was sorry to chuck
him; but Altringham's mad to marry her, and what could she do?"

And once again events had followed the course she had foreseen. Seeing
her at Lord Altringham's table, with the Ascots and the old Duchess
of Dunes, the interested spectators could not but regard the dinner as
confirming the rumour of her marriage. As Ellie said, people didn't
wait nowadays to announce their "engagements" till the tiresome divorce
proceedings were over. Ellie herself, prodigally pearled and ermined,
had floated in late with Algie Bockheimer in her wake, and sat, in
conspicuous tete-a-tete, nodding and signalling her sympathy to Susy.
Approval beamed from every eye: it was awfully exciting, they all seemed
to say, seeing Susy Lansing pull it off! As the party, after dinner,
drifted from the restaurant back into the hall, she caught, in the
smiles and hand-pressures crowding about her, the scarcely-repressed
hint of official congratulations; and Violet Melrose, seated in a corner
with Fulmer, drew her down with a wan jade-circled arm, to whisper
tenderly: "It's most awfully clever of you, darling, not to be wearing
any jewels."

In all the women's eyes she read the reflected lustre of the jewels she
could wear when she chose: it was as though their glitter reached
her from the far-off bank where they lay sealed up in the Altringham
strong-box. What a fool she had been to think that Strefford would ever
believe she didn't care for them!

The Ambassadress, a blank perpendicular person, had been a shade less
affable than Susy could have wished; but then there was Lady Joan--and
the girl was handsome, alarmingly handsome to account for that: probably
every one in the room had guessed it. And the old Duchess of Dunes was
delightful. She looked rather like Strefford in a wig and false pearls
(Susy was sure they were as false as her teeth); and her cordiality
was so demonstrative that the future bride found it more difficult to
account for than Lady Ascot's coldness, till she heard the old lady, as
they passed into the hall, breathe in a hissing whisper to her nephew:
"Streff, dearest, when you have a minute's time, and can drop in at
my wretched little pension, I know you can explain in two words what
I ought to do to pacify those awful money-lenders.... And you'll bring
your exquisite Ame