“Oh, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Hunter, her eyebrows making a rapid ascent until they seemed to mingle with the hairs that straggled down from beneath her elaborate coiffure. Mrs. Hunter’s ears were not so keen as Mrs. Plummer’s—the news regarding the religious beliefs of the Daquins had not reached her. Now she uttered the exclamation as though Mrs. Daquin had said: “My husband and his daughter have leprosy!” or “They suffer from epileptic fits.”
Mrs. Daquin unmistakably caught the implication—she flushed and twisted the handkerchief in her hands and laughed a silly, titterish and mirthless laugh. Mrs. Hunter turned and surveyed Jean and Mimi as though they were specimens of some new flora or fauna of a weird and unfamiliar species. Her inspection lasted but a minute but it was long enough to make Mimi squirm uncomfortably and she felt vaguely as though she had been caught in the act of doing some loathsome and criminal thing.
They did not pursue the subject. Mrs. Hunter rose soon afterwards, her husband following her lead.
“My dear, on Tuesday of next week I’m entertaining my club, the Fleur-de-Lis— Mr. Hunter calls it ‘the eating brigade’ but that’s because he’s jealous, we don’t let any men attend our affairs except once a year. You must come, for there you’ll meet the right people—it’s fatal to get mixed up with the wrong crowd,” she smilingly warned.
Mrs. Daquin eagerly accepted the invitation, too eagerly Mimi thought. As she bade the Hunters a formal goodbye, she was thinking to herself: “Why can’t she accept the attentions of Mrs. Hunter as though she were used to decent society instead of fawning all over herself?”
After the Hunters had left, there was a silence which was unbroken until they sat at supper. Mrs. Daquin several times looked inquiringly at Jean as though she were about to speak but each time desisted. Mimi