"Mrs. Neugass, I—What do you mean?"
"I took you in for a student, a girl alone from her home town, but not once since you're with us—I can't help it I got eyes—so much as a postal card. All right, I said time and time again to my husband, she don't have friends to come and call on her, because she's a stranger in New York. Neither did my Millie have so many friends, I guess, the first few weeks in Munich. But no letters—not a line! I know goys ain't so strong on family ties, but once in a while a letter—"
"I don't quite see where the matter of my correspondence can be of interest to you, Mrs. Neugass."
"No, but it is of interest to me if everything is all right with you. If everything is over and above-board, as the saying is, Miss Luella!"
There was a throb to the silence, as she sat upright there in bed, that seemed to shape itself about her, like a trap. She buried her face suddenly into her hands.
Then Mrs. Neugass rose, edging around the back of her chair as if to get clear of even propinquity.
"I'm right?" she cried, hoarsely and rather coarsely. "I'm right, then?
I took into my home a bad girl?"
"No!—No!—No!—"
Out of bed, her feet hastily into slippers and fumbling into her kimono so that the flow of her hair went down inside it, Lilly approached Mrs. Neugass, her gesture toward her and entreating.
"Mrs. Neugass, you're horribly wrong in what you suspect. You must listen to me—"