“Mrs. Sawyer Flint?”

“Precisely.”

“What is her objection?”

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

“Why not?”

“It appears that some time last fall Miss Robson tried to get her husband into a compromising position.  She came over to the house one night when Mrs. Flint was away.  Flint promptly ordered her out.  It seems she went ... to be quite frank ... with you.  And what is more, she....”

“It isn’t necessary for you to go any farther.  Tell me, do you mean to say that you believe this thing?  Didn’t you lift a hand to defend her?”

Lily Condor narrowed her eyes.  “Oh, come now, Ned Stillman, don’t be a fool!  You know as well as I do that I’m hanging on to my own reputation by my finger-nails.  I’m not taking any chances.  As to whether it is so ... well, if I were to tell the committee everything I know it wouldn’t help her cause any.  I could wreck her reputation like that,” she snapped her fingers, “with one solitary fact.  If she hasn’t wrecked it already with her senseless chatter....  Only last week her aunt, Mrs. Ffinch-Brown, said to me:  ’So you’re hiring my niece!  I must say that is handsome of you!’ You were sitting talking to Claire and she looked deliberately at you when she said it.  Remember how I warned you, last December.  I told you then that the secret of a woman’s meal-ticket was never hidden very long.”

During this speech Mrs. Condor’s voice had dropped from its original tone of petty rancor to one of petulant self-justification.  Stillman knew at once that her ill-temper had caught her off-guard and she was already trying to crawl slowly back into his favor.  She had meant, no doubt, to soften her news over a glass or two of chilled white wine which she had counted on sipping during the noon hour.  She might even then have gone farther and decided to cast her fortunes with Stillman and Claire if she had seen that her advantage lay in that direction.  He was not sure but that she still had some such notion in her mind.  But he felt suddenly sick of her past all hope of compromise, and he was determined to be rid of her once and for all.

“No doubt,” he said, frigidly, “you will be glad to be relieved of Miss Robson’s presence permanently.  I take it that you don’t consider her association exactly ... well ... shall we say discreet?”

Her eyes took on a yellow tinge as she faced him.  She must have sensed the finality of his tone, the well-bred insolence that his query suggested.

“Discreet?” she echoed.  “Well, I wouldn’t say that that was quite what I meant.  Desirable—­that would be better.  I don’t find her association desirable....  I don’t want her, in other words.”

He had never been so angry in his life.  Had she been a man he would have struck her.  He felt himself choking.  “My dear Mrs. Condor,” he warned, “will you be good enough to take a little more respectful tone when you speak of Miss Robson?”