She tossed her head. "Well, what if it was? I got the right to pass the time o' day with a fellow, ain't I? You'd suppose I was in prison!"
Philip sought out his lady again with a troubled heart. "Sorry to croak any more at this busy time, but Mag will bear watching. She's been seen about with men once or twice lately."
Kate sighed with exasperation. "'Give a dog a bad name.' I shall have to acquire the hundred eyes of Argus to keep up with my household nowadays, it seems!"
It was not the first warning that had come to her about her protégée. Big Liza, for years her confidential friend and ally, had said to her one day: "Dat white gal ain't keerin' so much about de chile no mo', Miss Kate. She's allus a-leavin' her with me, ef Miss Jacky ain't got her. Gawd He knows I ain't complainin' about havin' a chile aroun', seein' as how I done raise nine of my own, right heah under ma kitchen stove, like so many little puppy-dawgs. But dey wuz cullud chillun, an' dat's diffunt. Is dishyer hot kitchen any place to raise up a w'ite chile in? Now I ax you! 'Pears to me like dat gal don' keer for nothin' no mo' but traipsin' down to de sto' an' gallivantin' roun' de roads wid her fine clo'es on. She ain't no better'n a yaller nigger gal!"
Kate asked reluctantly (she did not take kindly to spying), "Have you ever seen her with men, Liza?"
The black woman compressed her lips. "No'm, Miss Kate, I ain't nebber prezackly seed 'em—but laws, honey, dat kin' ob goin's-on don't aim to be seed!"
Now that she had a more definite rumor to go by, Kate said sorrowfully to Philip, "You told me it was a mistake to bring her here in the first place. It seems to me I make a great many mistakes!" She sighed again.
"At least," said he, "they are the sort of mistakes that will get you into heaven."
She laughed mirthlessly. "You always talk, you clergymen, as if you had special advices from heaven in your vest-pockets!"
But she was comforted, nevertheless. She would have found it hard to do without Philip's steady adulation.