"But—but," she stammered, apparently fairly out of breath with amazement, "how often do you write now?"
May sprang up in her turn. She faced her mentor with the truly virtuous indignation of a girl who has been proved to be in the wrong.
"I shan't tell you another word!" she declared.
Mrs. Harbinger seized her by the shoulders, and fairly pounced upon her in the swoop of her words.
"How often do you write now?" she repeated. "Tell me before I shake you!"
The brief defiance of May vanished like the flare of a match in a wind-storm.
"Every day," she answered in a voice hardly audible.
"Every day!" echoed the other in a tone of horror.
Her look expressed that utter consternation which is beyond any recognition of sin, but is aroused only by the most flagrant breach of social propriety. Again the culprit put in what was evidently a prayer for pity, couched in a form suggested by instinctive feminine cunning.
"Oh, Mrs. Harbinger, if you only knew what beautiful letters he writes!"