There was silence for a moment, during which Mrs. Goyte remained with her head dropped, sinister and abstracted. Suddenly she lifted her face, and her eyes flashed.

“Oh, but I call it beastly, I call it mean, to take a girl in like that.”

“Nay,” I said. “Probably he hasn't taken her in at all. Do you think those French girls are such poor innocent things? I guess she's a great deal more downy than he.”

“Oh, he's one of the biggest fools that ever walked,” she cried.

“There you are!” said I.

“But it's his child right enough,” she said.

“I don't think so,” said I.

“I'm sure of it.”

“Oh well,” I said—“if you prefer to think that way.”

“What other reason has she for writing like that——?”