“I think you are worrying yourself unnecessarily, Mrs. Lester,” I said in an undertone.  We were sitting next each other, and I could speak to her without her husband overhearing.  “When you telephoned the maid an hour ago, the baby was all right, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, I know,” she returned dejectedly.  “But I have heard such dreadful things about maids neglecting babies left in their care.  Suppose she should leave her alone in the apartment, and something should catch fire and—­”

“See here, Daisy!” Lillian Gale joined our group, coffee cup in hand.  “Drink your coffee and your cordial.  Then pretty soon, if you feel you really must go, I’ll gather up Harry and start for home.  Then you can make Frank go.”

“You are awfully good, Lillian.”  Mrs. Lester looked gratefully up at the older woman.  “I know I am as silly as I can be, but you can’t know how I am imagining every dreadful thing in the calendar.”

“I know all about it,” Mrs. Underwood returned shortly, almost curtly, and walked away toward the group of men at the other side of the apartment.

“I never knew that she ever had a child.”  Mrs. Lester’s eyes were wide with amazement as they met mine.

“Neither did I.”  Purposely I made my tone non-committal.  From the look in Lillian Gale’s eyes when Mrs. Lester told us in my room of the way the baby looked asleep, I knew that some time she must have had a baby of her own in her arms.

But I detest gossip, no matter how kindly—­if, indeed, gossip can ever be termed kindly.  I could not discuss Mrs. Underwood’s affairs with any one, especially when she was a guest of mine.

“But she must have had a baby some time,” persisted little Mrs. Lester.  Her anxiety about her own baby appeared to be forgotten for the moment.  “It must have been a child of that awful man she divorced, or who divorced her.  I never did get that story right.”

I looked around the room.  How I wished some one would interrupt our talk.  I could not listen to Mrs. Lester’s prattle without answering her, and I did not wish to express any opinion on the subject.

As if answering my unspoken wish, Harry Underwood rose and came toward me.

“Were you looking for me?” he queried audaciously.

I had a sudden helpless, angry feeling that this man had been covertly watching me.  Annoyed as I was, I was glad that he had interrupted us, for his presence would effectually stop Mrs. Lester’s surmises concerning his wife.

“Indeed I was not looking for you,” I replied spiritedly.  “But I am glad you are here.  Please talk to Mrs. Lester while I go to the kitchen.  I must give some directions to Katie.”

“Of course that’s a terribly hard task”—­he began, smiling mischievously at Mrs. Lester.

But he never finished his sentence.  A loud, prolonged ringing of the doorbell startled us all.  It was the sort of ring one always associates with an urgent summons of some sort.