"Do you think she'd have me?" I asked--"the quaint creature, her
ladyship?"
"Only too likely that she would," said Lady Kilmarny. "But remember, the
worst is, she doesn't _know_ she's a quaint creature. She is quite happy
about herself, offensively happy, and would consider you the 'creature.'
A truly awful person, my dear. A man in this hotel--the little thing you
saw me talking to this morning, knows all about them both. I think they
began in Peckham or somewhere. They _would_, you know, and call it
'S.W.' She was a chemist's daughter, and he was the humble assistant,
long before the Pill materialized, so she refused him, and married a
dashing doctor. But unfortunately he dashed into the bankruptcy court,
and afterward she probably nagged him to death. Anyway he died--but not
till long after Sam Turner had taken pity on some irrelevant widow, as
his early love was denied him. The widow had a boy, to whom the
stepfather was good--(really a very decent person according to his
lights!) and kept on making pills and millions, until last year he lost
his first wife and got a knighthood.
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