It wasn’t just Ariadne de Mare who returned to the banquet hall victorious. Isabella de Mare, who had suffered a brutal defeat in the earlier squabble, shamelessly crawled back into the banquet hall as well.

But unlike Ariadne, who was in the center of the hall, receiving close escort from Prince Alfonso de Carlo like a victorious general, and engaging in conversation with venerable, important nobles, Isabella was huddled in a corner of the powder room with girls her age.

“Despicable girl!”

Isabella exploded in rage among her own entourage. It was a group of girls, slightly over ten in number, but not quite fifteen. They were the core peer group of San Carlo society.

The clothes they wore became the fashion for those unable to join this group, and that trend, the following year, spread as ‘the latest fashion in San Carlo’ not only in each region of the Etruscan Kingdom, but even beyond the Prino Mountain Range, to the Montpellier Palace in the Gallico Kingdom, where culture had not developed as much as in the Etruscan Kingdom.

Such a refined group of young ladies, and Isabella ended up using such a derogatory term. Shocked at the harsh word spat out by Isabella, the young girls stared at her. Isabella cleared her throat and tapped her lips with her fan.

She wanted so much to tell them about the incredible, horrific spectacle that had happened to her just a while ago, but these girls were raised too delicately.

If she were to recount such an event, she would obviously be regarded as a lunatic, with questions like, ‘Weren’t you dreaming, Lady de Mare?’ ‘Your younger sister said such terrifying things and tried to push you down the stairs?’

Moreover, she could not possibly tell her peer group that she had been insulted by someone she used to look down on. That would be too humiliating.

However, she could not bear to hold in her rage. Thus, Isabella began to speak ill of Ariadne, seizing on every fault she could find, leaving out only the fact that she had been insulted.

“I really wore a white dress because Ariadne said it was fine! I don’t understand why she had to speak like that!”

All the young ladies gathered there were friends of Isabella, so they had no choice but to take her words at face value.

While some doubted inwardly that Isabella was spouting nonsense or lying, in the face of Isabella’s maids staunchly supporting her, they could not voice their doubts for fear of being branded as traitors.

And among the rest, a couple of girls truly, passionately believed in Isabella and followed her.

“That young Lady de Mare is truly too ruthless.”

“How could she do that to her own sister?”

Isabella squeezed out a tear.

“I’ve been so good to Ariadne! I lent her clothes, helped her adapt to San Carlo, and even helped with her studies. But see how ungrateful she is, changing her colors the moment the prince appears!”

And among the others, there were those who were burning with jealousy.

While not Isabella’s ‘maids’, there were certainly those who were intensely jealous of the fact that a newly debuted daughter of a farm maid, holding the prince’s hand and coming in, had danced the first waltz with Count Cesare.

If some other lady, whom they previously rated highly, had held the prince’s hand, it would have been acceptable. They might have even admired her.

But the illegitimate daughter of a cardinal from a rural farm? And she’s not even that pretty? To resolve their cognitive dissonance, they spread malicious rumors of conspiracy, backroom dealings, and unsavory transactions.

Then there were the majority, the young ladies who simply wanted to follow the crowd. As Isabella opened the floodgates, the flood of other young ladies’ jealousy and their desire to fit in without standing out filled that channel to overflowing.

“Who wears a dress with such a deep neckline when they have a complex about their chest? It’s obviously a lie.”

“I don’t believe her when she says she didn’t do it. Are clothes something that can be easily torn?”

“Why is the prince taking her side so much? Did she really seduce him with her body?”

Isabella truly enjoyed the debutante ball. It felt like an anesthetic to her soul. It seemed like Isabella’s wounded pride was healing when she insulted Ariadne.

Isabella threw small details that could be used as firewood, saying, ‘Ariadne wears a blindfold,’ and ‘The dress shop is a cheap Ragione clothing store.’

Julia de Baldezar, who had been sitting with her mouth shut, stood up from her seat.

“Let’s really see.”

Julia de Baldezar was one of the two debutantes that Isabella treated as ‘best friends.’ Isabella chose Camellia and Julia as her closest friends.

Camellia was pleasing to Isabella even though she had a handsome and wealthy boyfriend, and Julia was of noble and considerably wealthy family from the prestigious Baldezar Duchy.

Julia de Baldezar, standing up, threw a single word at Isabella.

“Lady de Mare, your shoulder strap is showing.”