“Who deceived you?”

I might as well not have asked the question.  No attention was paid to it.

“He was such a dear boy, Harrie was.  So handsome and his family so well known, and he was so in love with Madeleine that I was deceived in him.  Yes indeed, I was deceived.  A woman is so helpless where men are concerned.”

“She isn’t a bit helpless unless she prefers to be.  A great many women do.  Had you made any inquiries concerning Harrie’s character?”

“In my day it wasn’t expected of a woman to make inquiries.”  Mrs. Swink’s voice was that of righteous reserve.  “It’s very hard on a mother to ask questions about character and things like that.  I knew of the Thorne family very well, and of the Thorne house, which I thought Harrie would live in until he and Madeleine could build a moderner one, and—­ Oh no, my child, you don’t know the anguish of a mother’s heart!  You don’t know!” Tears not of anguish, but of blighted ambition, caused the flow of words to cease temporarily, and light came to me.  Selwyn’s letter had done the work.

Harrie being eliminated, the fat old hypocrite was trimming her sails with hands hardened from long experience.  Her embraces and gratitude were a veer in a new direction.  In a measure I was to be held to account for the present situation; in a sense to be social sponsor for Mrs. Thomas Cressy.  A homeless Harrie, disapproved of by family and friends, would not have made a desirable son-in-law, and I had been seized upon as the most available opportunity within reach to bring her daughter’s marriage desirably before the public.  Mrs. Swink had seemingly little understanding of the little use society has for people who do not entertain.  I do not entertain.

Nothing was due her, but hoping if I promised help she might go away, I suggested the possibility of Kitty’s entertaining Tom and Madeleine on their return from their wedding-trip, and at the suggestion the beady little eyes brightened, and immediately I was deluged with details of the reception she had determined to give the bride and groom, implored for help in making out the list of guests to be invited, and begged to be one of the receiving party.  The last I declined.

When at last she was safely gone I locked the door and sprayed myself with a preparation that is purifying.  I was dispirited.  There are times when the world seems a weary place and certain of its people beyond hope or pardon.

Last night I had a talk with Mrs. Mundy.  She had seen the girl I overheard speaking of an ill man who was being nursed by some one she knew, and this girl had admitted that the “some one” was Etta Blake.  By another name she had been living in Lillie Pierce’s world.  For the past two weeks, however, she had been away from it.  When Mrs. Mundy told me, something within gave way, and my head went down in my arms, which fell upon the table, and I held them back no longer—­the aching tears which came at last without restraint.  “The pity—­oh, the pity of it!” was all that I could say, and wisely Mrs. Mundy let me cry it out—­the pain and horror which were obsessing me.  Hand on my head, she smoothed my hair as does one’s mother when her child is greatly troubled, and for a while neither of us spoke.