I drew on my reserve supply of patience, and answered, “What I shall let her find out in the end, I don’t know.  We shall be guided by circumstances, and this is no time to discuss the matter.  The point is now to make sure that you can go in and stay with her, and not let her get an idea there’s anything wrong.”

“Oh, but you know how Sylvia reads people!” she cried, in sudden dismay.

“I’ve fixed it for you,” I said.  “I’ve provided something you can be agitated about.”

“What is that?”

“It’s me.” Then, seeing her look of bewilderment, “You must tell her that I’ve affronted you, Mrs. Tuis; I’ve outraged your sense of propriety.  You’re indignant with me and you don’t see how you can remain in the house with me—­”

“Why, Mrs. Abbott!” she exclaimed, in horror.

“You know it’s truth to some extent,” I said.

The good lady drew herself up.  “Mrs. Abbott, don’t tell me that I have been so rude—­”

“Dear Mrs. Tuis,” I laughed, “don’t stop to apologize just now.  You have not been lacking in courtesy, but I know how I must seem to you.  I am a Socialist.  I have a raw, Western accent, and my hands are big—­I’ve lived on a farm all my life, and done my own work, and even plowed sometimes.  I have no idea of the charms and graces of life that are everything to you.  What is more than that, I am forward, and thrust my opinions upon other people—­”

She simply could not hear me.  She was a-tremble with a new excitement.  Worse even than opthalmia neonatorum was plain speaking to a guest!  “Mrs. Abbott, you humiliate me!”

Then I spoke harshly, seeing that I would actually have to shock her.  “I assure you, Mrs. Tuis, that if you don’t feel that way about me, it’s simply because you don’t know the truth.  It is not possible that you would consider me a proper person to visit Sylvia.  I don’t believe in your religion; I don’t believe in anything that you would call religion, and I argue about it at the least provocation.  I deliver violent harangues on street-corners, and have been arrested during a strike.  I believe in woman’s suffrage, I even argue in approval of window-smashing.  I believe that women ought to earn their own living, and be independent and free from any man’s control.  I am a divorced woman—­I left my husband because I wasn’t happy with him, what’s more, I believe that any woman has a right to do the same—­I’m liable to teach such ideas to Sylvia, and to urge her to follow them.”

The poor lady’s eyes were wide and large.  “So you see,” I exclaimed, “you really couldn’t approve of me!  Tell her all this; she knows it already, but she will be horrified, because I have let you and the doctor find it out!”

Whereupon Mrs. Tuis started to ascend the pedestal of her dignity.  “Mrs. Abbott, this may be your idea of a jest——­”

“Now come,” I cried, “let me help you fix your hair, and put on just a wee bit of powder—­not enough to be noticed, you understand——­”