Page:Hare and Tortoise (1925).pdf/178

 Mrs. Windrom, and noting with a little pang the half cynical smile which Dare allowed himself on seeing the ease of her transition. As if good acting were necessarily a sin of insincerity!

"We're terrifically mixed to-night, and owing to the unforeseen arrival of my aunt I've had to throw everybody up in a blanket and pair them as they came down. I've done what your clever son calls playing fast and loose with the social alphabet: natives paired with dudes, atheists with Methodist ministers, teetotallers with bibbers, socialists with diehards. And all my tried and true friends have a duty to perform,—namely to keep the talk on safe ground. Poor Aunt Denise, you know, is the widow of that old man who was fined a dollar for libeling the king."

During the last few weeks Mrs. Windrom had acquired a smattering of Canadian political history. Louise felt her stiffen.

"Aunt Denise has always lived under a cloud of illusions. First of all in convents, then with her husband whom she transformed from a village lawyer into a national enfant terrible. She wouldn't believe a word against him, and I think it showed rather a fine spirit. We all idolize our husbands in some degree, though some of us take more pains not to show it." Louise let this remark sink in, and felt Mrs. Windrom's shining lenses turn towards Dare, whose gaze was negligently resting on the opposite shore of the lake. "Consequently, if Aunt Denise