“No, nor with any one. But as I cannot control people’s tongues—”
“Then I would not give them cause for wagging. Aunt Esther, is there anything between Ruth and Dr. Kemp?”
“Jennie, you surprise and anger me. Do you know what you insinuate?”
“I can’t help it. Either you are crazy, or ignorant of what is going on, and I consider it my duty to enlighten you,”—a gossip’s duties are all away from home,—“unless, of course, you prefer to remain in blissful or wilful ignorance.”
“Speak out, please.”
“Of course I knew you must have sanctioned her going last night, though, I must confess, I still think you did very wrongly; but do you know where she went this morning?”
Mrs. Levice was put out. She was enough of a Jewess to realize that if you dislike Jewish comment, you must never step out of the narrowly conventional Jewish pathway. That Ruth, her only daughter, should be the subject of vulgar bandying was more bitter than wormwood to her; but that her own niece could come with these wild conjectures incensed her beyond endurance.
“I do know,” she said in response to the foregoing question. “Ruth is not a sneak,—she tells me everything; but her enterprises are so mild that there would be no harm if she left them untold. She called on a poor young girl who, after a long illness, desires pupils in Spanish.”
“A friend of Dr. Kemp.”
“Exactly.”