"It has been reported to me," said Aunt Honoria, "that as often as once a week during the winter and spring you've visited this man alone at night. You don't deny that?"
"Oh, no."
"Good God!" said Mr. Vanderdyke.
"And you don't deny that you were there last night?"
"The night before last," said Beatrix quietly.
Mrs. Vanderdyke almost raised her voice. "What you could see in a flamboyant creature of that type——"
"That isn't the point," said Aunt Honoria. "We are not concerned as to whether Beatrix has developed vulgar tastes and has found this painter attractive. We are concerned with the fact that for some utterly inadequate and inexcusable reason, she has surrounded our name with a net-work of vulgar gossip which, inevitably, will find its way into the scurrilous paragraphs of the carrion press."
"For the first time in history!" Mr. Vanderdyke almost wailed.
"We're very jealous of our good name," continued Aunt Honoria. "We've endeavored to set an example to society. It's inconceivable to us that it should have been left to you, old enough as you are to appreciate the truth of things, to put a slur upon us and with an obvious disregard for our reputation the subject of smoke-room gossip. I don't think that even you could make me believe that you've played the fool with this picturesque person, who, I hear, makes professional love to the silly wives of men with more money than sense. I can see that you've been merely indulging your latent sense of adventure or trying to persuade yourself that you've been playing the heroine's part in a romance."
"I wonder," said Mrs. Vanderdyke.