Page:Touchstone (Wharton 1900).djvu/109

 "I haven't been in town long enough to know anything," said Glennard, taking the cup his wife handed him. "Who has been reading what?"

"That lovely girl from the South—Georgie—Georgie What's-her-name—Mrs. Dresham's protégée—unless she's yours, Mr. Dresham! Why, the big ball-room was, packed, and all the women were crying like idiots—it was the most harrowing thing I ever heard—"

"What did you hear?" Glennard asked; and his wife interposed: "Won't you have another bit of cake, Julia? Or, Stephen, ring for some hot toast, please." Her tone betrayed a polite weariness of the topic under discussion. Glennard turned to the bell, but Mrs. Armiger pursued him with her lovely amazement.

"Why, the Aubyn Letters—didn't you know about it? She read them so beautifully that it was quite horrible—I should have fainted if there'd been a man near enough to carry me out."

Hartly's glee redoubled, and Dresham said jovially, "How like you women to raise a shriek over the book