“But I have told her,” exploded Diana, with more than her congenital exasperation. “I have told her, and she doesn’t seem to mind. She still says she’s going away with Smith in that cab.”

“But it’s impossible!” ejaculated Rosamund. “Why, Mary is really religious. She⁠—”

She stopped in time to realize that Mary Gray was comparatively close to her on the lawn. Her quiet companion had come down very quietly into the garden, but dressed very decisively for travel. She had a neat but very ancient blue tam-o’-shanter on her head, and was pulling some rather threadbare gray gloves on to her hands. Yet the two tints fitted excellently with her heavy copper-coloured hair; the more excellently for the touch of shabbiness: for a woman’s clothes never suit her so well as when they seem to suit her by accident.