until this moment, and
that she really must be off. Her farewell was quite friendly, but
Molly's was cold.

The departure of Lady Sophia made a welcome break, and, in spite of the
hostess being silent and out of temper, the men managed to divert the
conversation into less serious topics. But they were not likely to
forget what Molly had impressed upon their minds by the strange
vehemence with which she had emphasised her accusations.

"She meant herself, I suppose?" asked Billy, when leaving the house with
his stout fellow guest. "Do you believe it?"

"It was very curious, very curious indeed. Do you know I rather doubt if
she wholly and entirely believed it herself."

Billy was puzzled for a moment, thinking that some difficult mental
problem had been offered for his digestion.

"Oh, I see," he said, as he opened his own door with his latch-key. "He
only meant that she was telling a lie; I suspect he is right too."

CHAPTER XXXI

THE NURSING OF A SLANDER

Meanwhile, in shadowy corners of Westmoreland House, Miss Carew lived a
monotonous but anxious life. For days together she hardly saw Molly, and
then perhaps she would be called into the big bed-room for a long talk,
or rather, to listen to a long monologue in which Molly gave vent to
views and feelings on men and things.

Molly's cynicism was increasing constantly, and she now hardly ever
allowed that anybody did anything for a good motive. She had moods in
which she poured scandal into Miss Carew's half excited and curious
mind, piling on her account of the wickedness and the baseness of the
people she knew intimately, of the sharks who pursued her money, and,
most of all, she showered her scorn on the men who wanted to marry her.

Listening to her Miss Carew almost believed that all the men Molly met
were _divorces_, or notoriously lived bad lives, and hardly veiled their
intention to continue to do the same after obtaining her hand and her
money.

Molly would lie on a sofa, in a gorgeous kind of _deshabille_ which cost
almost as much as Miss Carew spent on her clothes in the whole year, and
apparently take delight in scaring her by these hideous revelations.
She was so strange in her wild kind of eloquence, and it was so
impossible to believe all she said, that the doubt more than once
occurred to Miss Carew whether it might be a case of the use of drugs.
The extraordinary personal indulgence of luxury was unlike anything the
older woman had