"Still," pursued Mrs. Langham-Greene, thoughtfully, "she is a nice lady-like little thing. I daresay she will marry young; she is so naive and pretty. It is not likely that she will hang on year after year like that poor, plain cousin of hers."
"Surely you don't mean Miss Thayer?"
"I mention no names," said the widow, archly: then her face dropped, pathetically. "I should not like to say one thing about that poor, misguided girl that might sound unkind,—poor creature, she has enough to bear."
"I don't understand you," said Gerald, flushing angrily.
"Ah, you men are so gallant," commented the widow, smiling a little sorrowfully. "I am told that the things gentlemen say about Miss Thayer when they are alone could not be repeated in a lady's hearing."
"Whoever told you that, Mrs. Greene," replied Gerald, forgetting the hyphened adjunct in his fury, "is an uncommonly first class liar. The things that gentlemen say about Miss Thayer could be repeated in the hearing of St. Peter."
"My dear Mr. Amherst, you have lifted a weight from my mind. Is it possible that there are men in this world so—so kindly that they refrain from unpleasant comment on a woman of that kind even when the refining influence of ladies' society"——
"A woman of that kind! Unpleasant comment! I don't know what in the—what in thunder you can mean, Mrs. Greene; and, if you will kindly inform me in as few words as possible"——
"I?"
Mrs. Langham-Greene drew her slender figure up haughtily and regarded her interrogator with stately yet grieved amazement.