Except perhaps Mrs. Bell! She felt a sting of regret, a sudden realisation of forlornness, as she noticed that, far from assuming that air of sculptured oblivion, Mrs. Bell from time to time looked at her in a most distressful manner. Mrs. Bell had always shown strong regard for her. Emmie was fond of Mrs. Bell.
As has been mentioned, Mrs. Bell owned one of the largest houses in Queen’s Gate, and it may now be added that her heart was as large as her house. She was a childless widow of forty-two who had earned a widowhood in which she frankly delighted by assiduous care of an elderly invalid husband; loquacious but devoid of malice, indeed exuberantly good-natured, she loved to clothe her pleasant expansive figure with grand garments; fair of complexion, gracious, smiling, when dressed at her grandest she looked blondly opulent like the queen of diamonds in the very best and most expensive packs of cards. She was waiting on the porch steps, when Emmie, after allowing the congregation to depart, herself left the church.
“Now, my dear girl--my dearest Emmeline--you are coming home to lunch with me. _That_ goes without saying.”
She would take no refusal. Her brougham, the last of the carriages remaining on the wet gravel, stood with its door open; she pushed Miss Verinder into it and the footman smothered them with a fur rug. As they drove away Miss Verinder’s eyes for a moment filled with not easily repressible tears. She was touched by the warmth of her friend’s greeting.
“Now I want to tell you,” said Mrs. Bell, with affectionate impressiveness, when she and Emmie had crossed the hospitable threshold and were alone together, “I want to tell you at once that nothing that has happened makes the least difference to _me_.”
“Thank you, dear Mrs. Bell,” said Emmie gratefully.
“I am not even going to ask you what _has_ happened.”
“I shall not ask a single question; and I want you to know that you will be welcomed in this house precisely as before--at all times and seasons, do you understand? If any of my friends object, then,” said Mrs. Bell firmly and grandly, “they can stay outside. Yes, they shall soon find I will not stand anything of _that_ sort. You see, I am perfectly frank with you, Emmeline. I should be less than a friend if I attempted to conceal the truth from you. You have the whole world against you. So far as worldly opinion is concerned, your only chance is to live it down--just _to live it down_. And, as I say, by _me_ you will be asked _no_ questions of any kind. But, oh, my dear child, what on earth have you done with your hair?”