"I have wardrobes full of them, and yet my husband insists
upon taking me up to London to get something fit to wear!"
"But not necessarily on your back!" cried Steel himself, appearing at
that moment in his usual way, warm, breathless, but only playfully put
out. "My dear Mrs. Woodgate, I must have a special wire between your
house and ours. One thing, however, I always know where to find her! Did
she tell you we go by the 12:55 from Northborough?"
It was something to wear upon her neck--a diamond necklet of superb
stones, gradually swelling to one of the first water at the throat; and
Rachel duly wore it at the dinner-party, with a rich gown of bridal
white, whose dazzling purity had perhaps the effect of cancelling the
bride's own pallor. But she was very pale. It was her first appearance
at a gathering of the kind, not only there in Delverton, but anywhere
at all since her second marriage. And the invitation had been of the
correct, most ample length; it had had time to wind itself about
Rachel's nerves.
Mr. Venables, who of course did take her in, by no means belied her
husband's description of him; he was a rotund man with a high
complexion, and his bulging eye was on the menu before his soft body had
sunk into his chair.
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