Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/117

“Have you really? Well, that is a shame!” and there was real sympathy in his voice. “I have so often thought of you, and always expected you were getting on like a house on fire.”

“Oh no! Fate has been against me. And yet I was working so hard and getting on so well! And there is a kind of I-told-you-so-ness about it all which is very hard to bear. But don’t let us talk about it now. Tell me about our old friends on board the ‘Suez.’ Do you ever hear of them? And what has become of your friend, Lady May?”

“Oh, Lady May has married again, and is as fat as a haystack now. Her husband died, you know, and she married a young fellow who was always hanging round her, just out of pity, I believe.”

“Well, people say that pity is akin to love; but for my part I think she must be a very poor relation. I must say I never thought Lady May was good-looking, though some people did, apparently.”

“Oh yes, I’ll own up. I used to think her a great star, but I was young and foolish then. And haven’t you ever met the chief engineer again? How you could put up with that sort of cad was always a mystery to me. He was so terribly second-rate.”