Lady Manby turned the whole thing
into a joke by a farcical description of the Private Enquiry proceedings
of a jealous woman of her acquaintance, who had donned a canary-coloured
wig as a disguise, and dogged her husband's footsteps in the streets of
London, only to find that he went out at odd times to visit a grandmother
from whom he had expectations, and who happened to live in St. John's
Wood.
The foreign waiters, who moved round the table handing the dishes,
occasionally exchanged furtive glances which seemed indicative of
suppressed amusement, and the men who were lunching near, many of whom
were now smoking cigarettes, became more and more intent upon Mrs.
Wolfstein and her guests. As they were getting up to go into the Palm
Court for coffee and liqueurs, Lady Cardington again referred to the
article on the proposed school for happiness, which had apparently made a
deep impression upon her.
"I wonder if happiness can be taught," she said. "If it can--"
"It can't," said Mrs. Trent, with more than her usual sledge-hammer
bluntness. "We aren't meant to be happy here."
"Who doesn't mean us to be happy?" asked poor Lady Cardington in a
deplorable voice.
"First--our husbands."
"It's cowardly not to be happy," cried Miss Burns, pushing her hat over
her left eye as a tribute to the close of lunch. "In a savage state
you'll always find--"
The remainder of her remark was lost in the /frou-frou/ of skirts as the
eight women began slowly to thread their way between the tables to the
door.
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