Mildred's reflections were far simpler to follow, and far less disquieting. No doubt she had made a mistake about the scandal she had tried to start about Marie, and it was a comfort to think that Lady Ardingly's remarks about the silliness of it being its own doom were true. Meantime it would be amusing to "run" Jim Spencer for a while, and she felt sure that, even if she could not do it, she could easily convey the impression that she was doing it. On the whole, she would not tell Jack she had seen Lady Ardingly (this was unnecessary, for he knew), and the rest of her meditation was composed of a sense of holding Jack's rein, whatever Lady Ardingly might say, and a superb determination to do her unselfish best for him. She was, as a matter of fact, hopelessly incapable of doing anything unselfish, but a benignant Providence having denied her the possibility of altruism, spared her also the humiliation of the knowledge of its absence.
It so happened that they met the next evening at an omnibus kind of party at Arthur Naseby's, a bachelor host. He was a man of strange and wayward tastes, and you were liable to meet a Sioux Indian in feathers there one week, and a missionary who had crossed Africa and been eaten, so he would explain, by cannibal tribes, the next. In his way he was an admirable host, and, before introducing any one of his guests to another, hissed into his ear a rapid _précis_ of the chief events of the other's life. These were sometimes wildly enigmatical, as when he murmured: "Frightful scandal just five years ago. Her uncle found dead in the Underground--probably blackmail. Cut for years afterwards. Don't allude to first-class carriages. Daughter of old Toby Fairbank--mother a Jewess." But, as a rule, his information was a help to the newly introduced, and he always pronounced their names loudly and distinctly, instead of murmuring inaudibly. To-night the party centred round a gifted French actress, who recited several poems in a most melodious voice and with a childlike air which was quite killing to those who knew what she was talking about. Later on there was Bridge, owing to the repeated demands of Lady Ardingly, and Jack and Mildred having cut out, it was quite natural that they should have a talk together in a somewhat secluded window-seat.