'I'm almost glad he did decline to come back,' I declared; 'it served his mistress right—she didn't deserve anything else!'
'Ah, I didn't want you to say that!' she protested; 'she never meant to be so unkind—it was all for the baby's sake!'
I was distinctly astonished, for all her sympathy in telling the story had seemed to lie in the other direction.
'You don't mean to say,' I cried involuntarily, 'that you can find any excuses for her? I did not expect you would take the baby's part!'
'But I did,' she confessed, with lowered eyes—'I did take the baby's part—it was all my doing that Pepper was sent away—I have been sorry enough for it since!'
It was her own story she had been telling at second-hand after all—and she was not Miss So-and-so! I had entirely forgotten the existence of any other members of the party but our two selves, but at the moment of this discovery—which was doubly painful—I was recalled by a general rustle to the fact that we were at a dinner-party, and that our hostess had just given the signal.
As I rose and drew back my chair to allow my neighbour to pass, she raised her eyes for a moment and said almost meekly:
'I was the baby, you see!'