It was now or never; Harriet’s heart began to beat.

“Madame Carter has gone driving,” she said.  “She may be in at any moment, but before she comes, I want to speak to you.  We’ve had terrible news here, Mrs. Tabor.  Mr. Carter is coming home to tell the children and his mother to-night.  Mr. Pope cabled from Paris on Christmas Eve that Mrs. Carter suddenly died that day!”

Ida Tabor never felt anything very deeply, but her emotions were accessible enough, and violent while they lasted.  She grew white, gasped, somehow reached a chair, and burst into honest tears.  Isabelle—!  Why, they had been friends for years!  Why, she had been so wonderfully well and strong!

“My God, isn’t that the limit!” said Mrs. Tabor, drying her eyes.  “I don’t know why I’m such a fool,” she added, with perhaps a faint resentment of Harriet’s calm, “but I declare it’s just about taken my breath away!  And they don’t know it!  Isn’t that simply terrible!”

“Nobody knows it,” Harriet said.  And not quite innocently she added:  “The Fordyces, the Bellamys—­everyone who knew her—­are in total ignorance of it!  If you do tell them, Mrs. Tabor—­and there is no reason why you shouldn’t—­”

“Oh, I shall stay here with Nina to-night, anyway!” the visitor said, decidedly.  “She’ll need me, of course!  Poor little thing!”

“It seems too bad to spoil your New Year’s plans,” Harriet said, smiling, “but you know Nina!  She will put those long arms of hers about you—­and she won’t hear of your leaving her for days!  With Nina,” Harriet pursued, thoughtfully, “it isn’t so much that one can’t find a good excuse, as that she won’t hear of excuses at all!  I remember when Mrs. Carter first went away, there were days of it—­weeks of it!—­just talk, tears, tears, and talk—­my arm used to ache from the weight of Nina’s arm!  Mr. Carter intends to leave for Chicago to-morrow, Ward will probably go up to the Eatons’—–­” Harriet rambled on, not unconscious that she was making an impression.  “Anyway,” she finished, “we shall be fearfully quiet and alone here, and your being here would simply save the day for Nina!”

“Oh, I really couldn’t stay over New Year’s,” Mrs. Tabor, looking slightly discomfited, said slowly.  “You see, the Fordyces—­”

“Nina may keep you,” Harriet said, lightly.  Perhaps the other woman had a sudden vision of the overwhelming Nina, a Nina so convinced of her friend’s real desire to stay that with a certain sportive heaviness she would do the necessary telephoning and explaining herself, to keep her.  Perhaps she saw the alternate vision of herself at the Fordyces’ inaccessible, and it must be confessed dull, dinner table, electrifying them all with the news of Isabelle Carter, coming as one admitted to the family confidence and councils.  She looked undecided, and bit her under-lip.

“One wonders—?” she said, musingly.  “Of course, I shouldn’t want to intrude to-night—­it would be merely to have them feel that I was here—­”