refrain from ever speaking ill of a
woman when talking to a man and never speaking aught but ill of women
when talking to their own kind, she foresaw in Gay's constant
attendance on the Gorgeous Girl the possibility of an unpleasant
situation.

For the Gorgeous Girl had said not only to her husband but to her
friends that she must find some other kind of a good time now the
novelty of the Villa Rosa was exhausted. Even inky people bored her,
she added; poets were no longer permitted in her drawing room, and the
circle of pet robins and angel ducks had somehow wandered out of her
safe keeping. An unusually pretty flock of sweetsome debutantes had
thinned the bachelor ranks, and Jill Briggs's youngest boy died of
some childish ailment, disturbing Beatrice more than she admitted, for
some reason, and making her own thoughts poor company.

It was while she was talking of this child's death with Trudy that the
latter glimpsed the handwriting on the wall, and with scantily
concealed enmity determined to beat Beatrice at her own game.

"Jill is going away for the winter, poor thing," Beatrice said. "I
don't blame her; it would be too horrible to have to stay and see all
his things about. And it's the second child she's lost. Goodness me,
she has spent hundreds on baby specialists and nurses! Well, you know
yourself, Trudy--you've seen how wonderful she has been. This boy's
death has so distressed her that she has decided to have two nurses
stay with the children instead of one. Mighty sweet of her, as it all
comes out of Jill's pocketbook and not her husband's. She says she
cannot think of leaving them with one person, and she must go away
because her nerves are frazzled.

"She is going to the West Indies with an artist friend, and they are
going to make a marvellous collection of water-colour paintings of
birds and flowers, a sort of memorial to the boy. Jill says she will
sell them and give the proceeds for the _creche_ charity. Well, that
is all very well for Jill to do; she has a real heartache to live
down. But when you have no earthly reason to go and paint wild birds
and flowers and you are bored to distraction with everything--" She
shrugged her shoulders.

"Meaning yourself?" asked Trudy. "Really?"--delighted that this was
so.

"Are you ever bored?"

"Only enough to be fashionable. You see I have to live Gay's life and
career and my own at the same time." Instinctively Trudy knew this
caused envy in her host