It came.

The voice went on:  “This is the first time you’ve met the mother, isn’t it?”

“I think so,”—­indifferently.  “Who is she, anyhow?”

“Nobody.”

Gwendolyn stared.

“Nobody at all—­absolutely.  You know, they say—­” She paused for emphasis.

Now, Gwendolyn’s eyes grew suddenly round; her lips parted in surprise. They again!

“Yes?” encouraged Louise.

Lower—­“They say she was just an ordinary country girl, pretty, and horribly poor, with a fair education, but no culture to speak of.  She met him; he had money and fell in love with her; she married him.  And, oh, then!” She chuckled.

“Made the money fly?”

The two were coming to settle themselves in chairs close to the side window.

“Not exactly.  Haven’t you heard what’s the matter with her?”

Gwendolyn’s face paled a little.  There was something the matter with her mother?—­her dear, beautiful, young mother!  The clasped hands were pressed to her breast.

“Ambitious?” hazarded Louise, confidently.

“It’s no secret.  Everybody’s laughing at her,—­at the rebuffs she takes; the money she gives to charity (wedges, you understand); the quantities of dresses she buys; the way she slaps on the jewels.  She’s got the society bee in her bonnet!”

Gwendolyn caught her breath. The society bee in her bonnet?

“Ah!” breathed Louise, as if comprehending.  Then, “Dear! dear!”

“She talks nothing else.  She hears nothing else.  She sees nothing else.”

“Bad as that?”

“Goes wherever she can shove in—­subscription lectures and musicales, hospital teas, Christmas bazars.  And she benches her Poms; has boxes at the Horse Show and the Opera; gives gold-plate dinners, and Heaven knows what!”

“Ha! ha! You haven’t boosted her, dear?”

“Not a bit of it!  Make a point of never being seen anywhere with her.”

“And he?”

Gwendolyn swallowed. He was her father.

“Well, it has kept the poor fellow in harness all the time, of course.  You should have seen him when he first came to town—­straight and boyish, and very handsome. (You know the type.) He’s changed!  Burns his candles at both ends.”

“Hm!”

Gwendolyn blinked with the effort of making mental notes.

“You haven’t heard the latest about him?”

“Trying to make some Club?”

Whispering—­“On the edge of a crash.”

“Who told you?”

“Oh, a little bird.”

Up came both palms to cover Gwendolyn’s mouth.  But not to smother mirth.  A startled cry had all but escaped her.  A little bird!  She knew of that bird!  He had told things against her—­true things more often than not—­to Jane and Miss Royle.  And now here he was chattering about her father!