“She’s a cat!”

“Oh, we’re all cats, mewing or spitting as the fit takes us,” said Mrs. Belgrove comfortably.  “I can’t see why cat should be a term of opprobrium when applied to a woman.  Cats are charmingly pretty animals, and know what they want, also how to get it.  Well, my dear?”

“I believe she was in love with Noel herself,” ruminated Lady Garvington.

“Who was in love?  Come to the point, my dear Jane.”

“Clara Greeby.”

Mrs. Belgrove laughed.  “Oh, that ancient history.  Every one who was anybody knew that Clara would have given her eyes—­and very ugly eyes they are—­to have married Noel Lambert.  I suppose you mean him?  Noel isn’t a common name.  Quite so.  You mean him.  Well, Clara wanted to buy him.  He hasn’t any money, and as a banker’s heiress she is as rich as a Jew.  But he wouldn’t have her.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” asked Lady Garvington, waking up—­she had been reflecting about a new soup which she hoped would please her husband.  “Clara has quite six thousand a year, and doesn’t look bad when her maid makes her dress in a proper manner.  And, talking about maids, mine wants to leave, and—­”

“She’s too like Boadicea,” interrupted Mrs. Belgrove, keeping her companion to the subject of Miss Greeby.  “A masculine sort of hussy.  Noel is far too artistic to marry such a maypole.  She’s six foot two, if she’s an inch, and her hands and feet—­” Mrs. Belgrove shuddered with a gratified glance at her own slim fingers.

“You know the nonsense that Garvington was talking; about shooting a burglar,” said the other woman vaguely.  “Such nonsense, for I’m sure no burglar would enter a house filled with nothing but Early Victorian furniture.”

“Well?  Well?  Well?” said Mrs. Belgrove impatiently.

“Clara Beeby thought that Garvington meant to shoot Noel.”

“Why, in heaven’s name!  Because Noel is his heir?”

“I’m sure I can’t help it if I’ve no children,” said Lady Garvington, going off on another trail—­the one suggested by Mrs. Belgrove’s remark.  “I’d be a happier woman if I had something else to attend to than dinners.  I wish we all lived on roots, so that Garvington could dig them up for himself.”

“My dear, he’d send you out with a trowel to do that,” said Mrs. Belgrove humorously.  “But why does Garvington want to shoot Noel?”

“Oh, he doesn’t.  I never said he did.  Clara Greeby made the remark.  You see, Noel loved Agnes before she married Hubert, and I believe he loves her still, which isn’t right, seeing she’s married, and isn’t half so good-looking as she was.  And Noel stopping at that cottage in the Abbot’s Wood painting in water-colors.  I think he is, but I’m not sure if it isn’t in oils, and the—­”

“Well?  Well?  Well?” asked Mrs. Belgrove again.

“It isn’t well at all, when you think what a tongue Clara Greeby has,” snapped Lady Garvington.  “She said if Noel came to see Agnes by night, Garvington, taking him for a burglar, might shoot him.  She insisted that he looked at Agnes when he was talking about burglars, and meant that.”