She
wasn't a pretty child."
"It's happiness--and the English climate--and Captain Dicky. They adore
each other, and laugh at everything like a pair of children. They were
immensely popular in New York last winter, when they visited Mina's
people."
The effect of the morning upon Lady Anstruthers was what Betty had hoped
it might be. The curious drawing near of the two nations began to dawn
upon her as a truth. Immured in the country, not sufficiently interested
in life to read newspapers, she had heard rumours of some of the more
important marriages, but had known nothing of the thousand small details
which made for the weaving of the web. Mrs. Treat Hilyar driving in a
leisurely, accustomed fashion down Bond Street, and smiling casually at
her compatriots, whose "sailing" was as much part of the natural order
of their luxurious lives as their carriages, gave a definiteness to the
situation. Mina Thalberg, pulling down the embroidered frocks over the
round legs of her English-looking children, seemed to narrow the width
of the Atlantic Ocean between Liverpool and the docks on the Hudson
River.
She returned to the hotel with an appetite for lunch and a new
expression in her eyes which made Ughtred stare at her.
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