Mrs. Bobby looked steadily at the speaker. "As a friend of Mr. Gerard's, Sibyl," she said, "I can state on his authority that the engagement was broken by Miss Van Vorst."
Sibyl Hartington's calm, faintly amused smile again rippled across her face. "I never doubted, my dear Eleanor," she said, "that Mr. Gerard is a gentleman."
The entrance of another visitor at that moment was not altogether unwelcome to Mrs. Bobby, who felt that she was being worsted; but the new-comer immediately continued the same subject.
"I've just been hearing the most extraordinary news," she exclaimed, sitting on the edge of her chair, and too much excited to notice Mrs. Bobby's presence, "I heard it at luncheon. They say that Elizabeth Van Vorst"—But here the speaker suddenly caught sight of Mrs. Bobby, and stopped short.
"Well, what do they say?" said Mrs. Bobby, with rather a bitter smile. "Don't keep us in suspense, Miss Dare, and above all, don't mind my feelings. I would rather know the worst of this."
"Well, I don't believe there is any truth in it. They say that she is really seriously implicated in that dreadful poisoning case; that the police have letters she wrote to Halleck, and all sorts of unpleasant things. But of course it's impossible—a girl like that, whom we all know!"
"Do we?" said Mrs. Hartington, softly. "Do you think that we, any of us, know much about her? You didn't, Eleanor, did you?"—turning to Mrs. Bobby—"You just took her up in that charming, impulsive way of yours—didn't you?—because people in the Neighborhood didn't have much to do with her, and you felt sorry for her?"
Mrs. Bobby made a scornful little gesture. "You flatter me, Sibyl," she said. "I'm afraid I'm not so charitable as all that. I 'took up' Elizabeth Van Vorst, as you say, because I liked her, and for no other reason. It was for my own pleasure entirely that I asked her to stay with me, and I have never regretted it."
Mrs. Hartington gave a barely perceptible shrug of the shoulders. "I congratulate you," she said. "It was a rash action, some people thought at the time. A girl whom you knew so slightly, whose mother was such an impossible person—or at least, so they say. I don't of course," she went on, in her soft, drawling tones, "know much about it myself, but it does make all this gossip seem less extraordinary—doesn't it?"
"Why, yes, of course, that accounts for it," said Mrs. Lansdowne, looking relieved. "That sort of thing runs in families. A girl who has a queer mother is sure to be queer herself and get herself talked about."