After the recital was finished and the last loquacious woman had finally bade the hostess good-bye, she turned quickly from the door and sought her daughter.
“It’s simply terrible,” she said with evident feeling, “that this Bard person should have been asked to our home to-day, and I must and do insist that in future, if you are so foolish as to see him at all—”
“Now, Mother,” said Freda with some curiosity, “what on earth have the dear ladies been telling you?”
“Everybody knows it!” exclaimed Mrs. MacDowell. “He has been seen on the street with Mrs. Poynton and was also noticed coming out of her house.”
“Well, anything else?” Freda coolly enquired.
“I think that’s almost enough,” smiled her mother. “No one is laboring under any delusions about Mrs. Poynton, surely.”
“Perhaps not, Mother,” Freda almost hissed, as, blushing red, she drew quickly back with hatred in her eyes. “Perhaps Mrs. Poynton was guilty of a sin you and Mrs. Beecher will not forgive her for. Perhaps it was a sin her husband will not forgive. I know nothing about her. I want to know nothing. But of one thing I am absolutely certain!”
“And of what, my girl, are you so certain?” asked her mother.
“That if Mauney Bard called at her home he did it in innocence,” replied Freda, defiantly.
“Ha,” gently laughed the proud scion of Family-Compact glory, “Your credulity is quite amazing. If you care to believe what you say, you are, of course, at liberty to do so. You have always been full of strange and reckless impulses.”