“True to him?  Of course I’m going to be true to him.  Why shouldn’t I be?  I’m going to be more true to him now than I was before.  He’s so noble about it, too.  I wish you could have seen the way he broke it to me.  Aunt Queenie said she never saw anything so affecting, not even on the stage.  She was there, you know.  Herbert felt he couldn’t go over it all twice, and he thought I should need some one to support me through the shock.  I didn’t—­not a bit.  But I wish you could have been there, just to see him.”

“I can fancy it, dear.”

“Of course I know now what you’ve been fidgeting about ever since he came to New York.  He says you recognized him—­that you’d seen him at Greenport.  Oh, I knew there was something.  But I must say, Miriam, I think you might have told me confidentially, and not let it come on me as such a blow as this.  Not that I take it as a blow, though, of course, it upsets things terribly.  We can’t announce our engagement for ever so long, and Aunt Queenie is rushing round in the motor now to take back what she wrote to a few people yesterday.  I can’t imagine what she’ll tell them, because I charged her on her sacred honor not to give them the idea it was broken off, although I’d rather they thought it was broken off than that I hadn’t been engaged at all.”

“Miss Jarrott takes it quietly, then?”

“Quietly!  I wish you could see her.  She thinks there never was anything so romantic.  Why, she cried over him, and kissed him, and said she’d always be his friend if every one else in the world were to turn against him.  As a matter of fact, the poor old dear is head over heels in love with him—­do you see?—­in that sort of old-maid way—­you know the kind of thing I mean.  She thinks there’s nobody like him, and neither there is.  I shall miss him frightfully while he’s down there telling Uncle Jarrott.  I shall skip half my invitations and go regularly into retreat till he comes back.  There’s lots more he’s going to tell me then—­all about what Popsey Wayne had to do with it—­and everything.  I’m glad he doesn’t want to do it now, because my head is reeling as it is.  I’ve so many things to think of—­and so much responsibility coming on me all at once—­and—­”

“Are you going to do anything about Billy?”

“Well, I can postpone that, at any rate.  Thank goodness, there’s one silver lining to the cloud.  I was going to give him a pretty strong hint to-night, seeing Aunt Queenie has begun writing notes around, but now I can let him simmer for a while longer.  He won’t be able to say I haven’t let him down easy, poor old boy.  And, Miriam dear,” she continued, gathering up her various articles of apparel, preparatory to taking leave, “you’ll keep just as quiet about it as you can, like a dear, won’t you?  We don’t mean to say a word about it outside ourselves till Herbert comes back from seeing Uncle Jarrott.  That’s my advice—­and it’s all our advice—­I mean, Aunt Queenie’s, too.  Then they’re going to law—­or something.  I know you won’t say anything about it, but I thought I’d just put you on your guard.”