The next morning Dr. Stanhope, at breakfast and gloomy, brightened as his daughter came in and sat opposite him.
“I had such a glorious time at the Waylands’!” she said. “The dinner was lovely.”
“Did Edgar take you in?”
“Oh, no.” She blushed. “He wasn’t there. He’s in Stoughton, you know. But I met the most beautiful woman. She seemed so young, and yet she had such a wise, experienced look. And she was so unconscious how beautiful she was. You never saw such a sweet, pretty mouth! And her teeth were like—like——”
“Pearls,” suggested her father. “They’re always spoken of as pearls—when they’re spoken of at all.”
“No—because pearls are blue-white, whereas hers were white-white.”
“But who was this lady with the teeth?”
“I didn’t have a chance to ask—only her name. She said she was a working-woman. She’s a Miss Bromfield.”
Stanhope dropped his knife and fork and looked at his daughter with an expression of horror.
“Why, what is it, father? Is there something wrong about her? It can’t be. And I—I arranged to call on her!”